Aberdeen Heights employee have tested positive for COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our region, Aberdeen Heights announces that a part-time, non-direct care employee has tested positive for the virus.

“Our residents and employees continue to be our highest priority as the virus continues to spread,” said Rick Cumberland, executive director.

The employee last worked Friday, September 25. They screened in for their shift and wore personal protective equipment (PPE) at that time. The positive test resulted from the employee seeking a test on October 5 after noticing symptoms and was not part of our ongoing surveillance efforts.

Surveillance testing requires all employees, agency employees, volunteers, hospice, lab and therapy providers at our campus to be tested on a frequency determined by our county’s COVID-19 testing positivity rate. Based on our county positivity rate for COVID-19 tests, our campus is testing employees once a month.

Aberdeen Heights conducted contact tracing, which determined there was no resident or employee exposure to the individual who tested positive.

The St. Louis County Health Department will be relied upon for further direction.

All employees who test positive will remain in isolation until cleared to return to work by the St. Louis County Health Department. Under the current CDC guidelines, symptomatic employees may return to work when at least 24 hours have passed since resolution of the employee’s fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and the employee’s symptoms  have improved and at least 10 days have passed since symptoms first appeared. Asymptomatic positive employees will quarantine for 14 days. Upon the employee’s return to work, we will follow CDC recommendations related to work practices and restrictions.

Aberdeen Heights continues to screen all employees as they enter the community building for a shift and before they have any direct contact with residents.  In addition, staff members are wearing masks per CDC recommendations.

For more information about Aberdeen Heights’ response, go to PMMA’s (Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America’s) website, presbyterianmanors.org/media-room.

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