East Cobb Seniors

The number of COVID cases has been soaring in Cobb County since the month of July, and new outbreaks have been reported in some long-term care homes in Georgia.

Most of those facilities in East Cobb have reported minimal cases and deaths during that time. An exception is the HCR Manor Care Rehabilitation Center on Johnson Ferry Place.

Some closed voluntarily in March, before Gov. Brian Kemp issued a shelter-in-place order and dispatched the Georgia National Guard to test residents and employees.

While many new cases in Cobb and Georgia are occurring in much younger age groups, elderly people and those living in long-term care homes still make up a sizable percentage of the hospitalizations and fatalities.

According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, 3,961 of Georgia’s 4,727 deaths, or 83 percent, have been people aged 60 and older. The Georgia Department of Community Health reported Monday that 1,995 people have died in long-term care homes, 41 percent of the statewide death toll.

Long-term care homes include nursing homes, assisted living facilities, personal-care homes and memory-care units.

Those trends are reflected at the local level. In Cobb, 143 of the county’s 340 deaths—second in Georgia, only to Fulton—have been in long-term care homes, or 42 percent of the totals.

In East Cobb, 66 people have died from the virus, and 29 of them, or 44 percent, were living in long-term care homes, according to Cobb County government’s Geographic Information System office.

Those figures are from late last week, and a map of the long-term care home deaths is updated here, and is shown in the icons on the map below.

Alto Senior Living on LeCroy Road, near Roswell Road and Robinson Road West, has reported eight deaths, according to the Georgia DCH, which has issued a weekly update on cases, deaths and tests since the crisis began. Those figures come directly from the entities that operate the long-term care homes.

That’s the highest number for any long-term care home in East Cobb, although none of those have been reported since the summer.

(The long-term care report is now issued daily, and you can see the latest report by clicking here.)

Six residents have died at the A.G. Rhodes senior-living home on Wylie Road, and five at Sterling Estates East Cobb, but at both facilities none since the spring.

HCR Manor Care operates more than 500 skilled nursing homes and rehabilitation centers across the country. At the end of June, its East Cobb facility, which currently has 72 residents, had reported nine resident cases and no deaths.

But during July, three residents died there and the number of positive resident cases had grown to 34. That number is now at 53, and a total of 34 positive cases also were reported among Manor Care employees, according to state figures on Monday.

Julie Beckert, a spokeswoman for Manor Care, did not elaborate on the deaths, but said the increase in positive cases is due to a significant boost in testing.

Monday’s Georgia DCH figures show that 184 residents at the Manor Care East Cobb location have been tested, and 186 at the Manor Care facility in Decatur.

Beckert said Manor Care has done “whole-house testing” and that over “the last several weeks,” 63 patients have tested positive and many were asymptomatic. Beckert didn’t indicate how many, and “unfortunately, we lost six patients due in part to COVID-19.”

That includes another death at Manor Care in East Cobb reported last week two deaths at the Manor Care facility in Decatur, according to Georgia DCH figures.

She said 39 employees tested positive in recent weeks, with 24 recoveries and 15 staffers on self-quarantine.

The AJC reported last month about a major outbreak at the Dunwoody Health and Rehabilitation Center, which went from zero to 15 deaths and nearly 100 positive resident cases since the end of June. The Sandy Springs facility has 240 residents.

As of Monday, here are the latest COVID-19 figures for long-term care homes in East Cobb:

• A.G. Rhodes Home Cobb, 900 Wylie Road (30067): 6 resident deaths, 26 positive resident cases, 19 resident recoveries, 9 positive staff cases;
• Alto Senior Living Marietta, 840 LeCroy Drive (30068): 8 resident deaths, 23 positive resident cases, 14 resident recoveries, 3 positive staff cases;
• Arbor Terrace of East Cobb, 886 Johnson Ferry Road (30068): 3 resident deaths, 7 positive resident cases, 1 resident recovery, 15 positive staff cases;
• Heritage of Sandy Plains, 3039 Sandy Plains Road (30066): 0 resident deaths, 0 positive resident cases, 0 resident recoveries, 3 positive staff cases;
• Manor Care Rehabilitation Center, 4360 Johnson Ferry Place (30068): 4 resident deaths, 53 positive resident cases, 53 resident recoveries, 34 positive staff cases;
• The Solana East Cobb, 1032 Johnson Ferry Road (30068): 0 resident deaths, 0 positive resident cases, 0 resident recoveries, 7 positive staff cases;
• Sterling Estates East Cobb, 4220 Lower Roswell Road (30068): 5 resident deaths, 13 positive resident cases, 6 resident recoveries, 0 positive staff cases;
• Sunrise of East Cobb, 1551 Johnson Ferry Road (30062): 1 resident death, 4 positive resident cases, 3 resident recoveries, 2 positive staff cases.

Beckert said among the additional measures Manor Care has taken is to conduct regular temperature checks of residents (with a threshold of 99 degrees to address possible changes in condition). It’s also created an “airborne isolation unit” to treat higher-risk patients, with dedicated personal protective equipment and special cleaning, disposal and sanitizing measures.

Additional barriers also have been installed to protect other residents and employees from infection, she said.

Related content

• Kemp issues order allowing local mask mandates
• The East Cobb Open for Business Directory
• East Cobb News COVID-19 Resource Page

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!