AP
the Cobble Hill Health Center
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COVID-19
Kirkland’s
Associated Press
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Donny Tuchman
Cobble Hill
Daniel Arbeeny
Cobble Hill’s
Steven Vince
COVID
Eva Buchmuller
Candice Choi
Jim Mustian
David R. Martin
Anthony Izaguirre
Randy R. Herschaft
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the Cobble Hill
Cobble Hill
NEW YORK
Kirkland
Washington
Brooklyn
Richmond
Virginia
Holyoke
Mass.
New York City
Hubei Province
China
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Not a single resident has been able to get tested for the virus to this day.Now listed with 55 deaths it can only assume were caused by COVID-19, among the most of any such facility in the country, Cobble Hill Health Center has become yet another glaring example of the nation’s struggle to control the rapid spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes that care for the most frail and vulnerable.Cobble Hill’s grim toll surpasses not only Kirkland’s but the 49 deaths at a home outside of Richmond, Virginia, 48 dead at a veteran’s home in Holyoke, Mass., and five other homes in outer boroughs of New York City that have at least 40 deaths each.Out of an Associated Press tally of 8,003 nursing home deaths nationwide, a third of them are in New York state.AP interviews with friends and relatives who have visited the Cobble Hill Health Center in recent weeks, as well as the home’s own statements, paint a picture of a facility overwhelmed and unequipped to deal with its coronavirus outbreak, with shortages of staff, personal protective equipment and the availability of reliable testing.“They were under siege,” said Daniel Arbeeny, who brought his ailing 88-year-old father from a hospital to the home in late March. An administrator told him they were confident his uncle did not have the virus.“It’s very surprising because I don’t think anyone from the facility contacted us to tell us anything like this or basically bring this to our attention in any way,” he said.Eva Buchmuller, a New York City artist whose best friend has lived in Cobble Hill with Alzheimer’s for three years, said she wasn’t that surprised the virus spread in the nursing home’s cramped quarters, with small rooms tightly packed along narrow corridors and residents not allowed to open windows.
As said here by BERNARD CONDON, MATT SEDENSKY and JENNIFER PELTZ