Live Update to Residents-February 25, 2021
Today’s Live Update on our in-house TV970 covered the latest news at Westminster Canterbury Richmond. It featured John Burns, President and CEO; Brenda Boucher, Infection Preventionist RN; and Lynn McClintock, Director Pastoral Care. The next Live Update will be Tuesday, March 2.
The following updates were shared.
John Burns
Vaccination Updates
Today marks our final vaccination clinic! Thank you to Sloan Verlander, Will Blackwell, Debra Jacobsen, the Resident Services team and many others for their great work coordinating the vaccination clinics. This is an important step as we move toward reopening Westminster Canterbury Richmond.
We celebrated our final vaccination clinic with chocolates and mimosas. Thank you to Leota Parandeh, Scott Jonté and Jason Pace for their work coordinating the treats and to the Foundation team for serving. Our celebration was featured on the front page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch today, as well as with a short video in the online version. Read the article or watch the video here.
COVID-19 Updates
In Virginia, the positivity rate has fallen from a high of 17.4% after New Years to today’s rate of 8.0%. This is still higher than the positivity rate was at any time last summer. 543,394 people have been fully vaccinated, or 13.7% of the state population. Approximately 32,500 doses are being administered each day.
At Westminster Canterbury, one employee who tested positive for COVID-19 continues to recover in quarantine. Everyone else has recovered and returned to work.
On Wednesday, another Independent Living resident in the Tower resident tested positive for COVID-19. There has been a total of six cases in February. Thankfully, two of these residents recovered. Two are asymptomatic and in quarantine in their apartments. One is being cared for in the COVID-19 positive unit. One is in the hospital. Please keep them in your prayers.
Next week we will begin sharing details about plans to reopen programs and services.
Being fully vaccinated means that you have had two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and that two weeks have passed since you received the second shot. It takes two weeks to build full immunity after the second dose of vaccine. We are happy to have our full community vaccinated, but we must continue to follow the guidance that keeps us safe. Please keep wearing a mask, maintain your social distance and avoid small gatherings while we are building full immunity.
Shred Bin
A shred bin has been added in the Tower Information Center.
Infection Preventionist
Brenda Boucher is our interim Infection Preventionist/QAPI Registered Nurse, serving with our Health Services teams while we search for a permanent replacement. This is an important role at all times, but especially during the pandemic as we manage contact tracing, quarantine and more.
Brenda Boucher
Brenda Boucher is a registered nurse from Jacksonville, Florida. She is a mother of two and grandmother of three. She is a travel nurse manager who has been traveling for 11 years. She enjoys the chance to work at different facilities and meet new people. She completed Infection Preventionist training through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and has been doing this work both during the pandemic and for many years prior.
Brenda worked at Westminster Canterbury in 2012-2013 and is familiar with the organization, policies and procedures. The Infection Preventionist role includes overseeing, evaluating and enhancing the QAPI and infection control programs to ensure high quality of care is delivered to residents consistent with the organization’s mission and quality standards.
Lynn McClintock
Announcements
A Sermon for Every Sunday will air on Sunday, February 28, at 4 p.m., on TV970. Father Michael Renninger, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Richmond, will reflect on the lives of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 17. The sermon looks at the role of trust and how to find joy in the promises of God, even when we feel as though the promised land is not apparent to us.
Romans 12:12
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Galatians 6:9
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Prayer
Loving God, as we celebrate our exciting milestone today of going through a full cycle of vaccinations for our residents and staff, we give you the praise for seeing us through to this point, for offering us some hope, and strengthening us for this difficult journey we have been on. We thank you for each staff member of Westminster Canterbury, of CVS and the Department of Health who have worked together to make the clinics so successful. We’ve made it this far and we are grateful.
You are a great God and greatly to be praised. You ask for honesty and humility from us—and even more so as we approach you in prayer. We admit that we are accustomed to having the freedom to make the decisions in our lives, to go when we want to go, to gather when we want to gather, and sit when we want to sit. You know our anxious hearts and how eager we are to fling open our doors, fill up our calendars, and make up for all the hugs we missed last year. We don’t want to hear that we can’t quite do that yet. Help us hang on a little longer. And while we are tired of asking you for more patience after a year like this past one, we ask for it yet again. Help us get through the next few months as we slowly resume gatherings and meals together. Give strength to our staff, who will be pivoting yet again to adapt to this newest normal of a graduated re-opening.
And most of all, grant us the wisdom to learn from this past year. Open our hearts to be mindful of how many in our Westminster Community, in our city, nation, and in the world have lost their lives to COVID-19, how many families are grieving, how many families are exhausted from not getting a break from kids at home or caregiving for others—how many businesses have had to close and how many folks have been unable to pay the rent, buy food or keep warm this winter. Help us to realize how incredibly blessed we are in the grand scheme of things. And may the grace with which you have blessed us keep us ever humble—and keep us wildly grateful. Amen.