Update: First Sacramento coronavirus death was resident of Elk Grove senior living facility
Sacramento County announced the first death related to the new coronavirus Tuesday evening, a woman in her 90s who was a resident at an assisted living facility.
Carlton Senior Living, which operates a facility in Elk Grove, announced Tuesday night the death was one of its residents who was recently diagnosed with the virus. The woman died of complications related to the virus, also known as COVID-19, according to Sacramento County Public Health.
The death is the third in California from the coronavirus, following one in Placer County last week and one in Santa Clara County on Monday.
“When a nursing home facility has an outbreak, regardless if it is flu, norovirus or COVID-19, Sacramento County Public Health immediately begins the investigation process to follow the communicable disease exposure of others, and will monitor or isolate those individuals until they are no longer contagious,” county health director Peter Beilenson said in a statement.
Earlier Tuesday, the county confirmed that a resident at a senior living facility tested positive for the new coronavirus and was hospitalized. An email sent the previous day to family members of residents at the Carlton Senior Living Elk Grove — which has approximately 140 residents — stated a resident there tested positive.
Carlton Senior Living, which operates nursing homes and senior living facilities across the Sacramento region and Bay Area, said in a press release that it is in close contact with local health departments and has been following guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We have implemented isolation protocol for the next 14 days and have been commended for the proactive steps we have taken to prevent the spread of this virus to other residents and staff in our Elk Grove Community,” read the Carlton Senior Living press release.
It appears to be the first confirmed COVID-19 case in a California senior facility. County public health departments, however, have only released limited details about where individual cases are confirmed, so there could be more that have not been made public.
Beilenson told The Sacramento Bee on Tuesday morning that the county would be prioritizing containing the virus outbreak at the senior living facility in an attempt to prevent a repeat of what happened at a nursing home in Seattle two weeks ago, where the COVID-19 virus had caused a reported 15 deaths.
The county has started focusing its limited testing ability on determining the health status of others residents at the senior living facility. Elderly individuals and people with underlying health conditions are the populations most likely to be affected by the COVID-19 virus.
“That’s the one priority that we’re using our 20 tests a day for,” Beilenson previously told The Bee. “I know they have more than 20 people there, and that’s part of the problem of not having enough tests, so we will do circles around the person who initially tested positive.”
The new coronavirus has spread across nations and has threatened to destabilize the global economy, killing more than 4,000 people around the world. There are at least 157 positive cases of the novel coronavirus in the state, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday.
The first death related to the COVID-19 virus in California occurred last week in Placer County. That person, an elderly Rocklin resident, was likely exposed to the virus during an overseas trip on a Grand Princess cruise ship.
It’s unclear how the resident at the senior living home who died contracted the virus.
The headline has been updated to reflect new information.
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Update: First Sacramento coronavirus death was resident of Elk Grove senior living facility."
