Live Update to Residents-June 8, 2020
Daily Live updates to residents on our in-house TV970 keep us informed and connected. Today’s update featured John Burns, President and CEO; Windley Gravatt, Vice President Workforce Services; and Lynn McClintock, Director Pastoral Care.
The following updates were shared during the live briefing on TV970.
John Burns
In the United States, there are 1,920,904 cases of COVID-19, an increase of nearly 30,000 from yesterday. There have been 109,901 deaths due to COVID-19. As of today, the COVID-19 data for Virginia includes:
• 381,220 people have been tested for COVID-19. Positive cases total 51,251.
• The rolling seven-day positivity rate in Virginia is 10% (a decrease of 0.5%), Henrico is 11.8% (decrease of 0.4%) and Richmond is 15.6% (decrease of 0.5%).
• In total, 5,143 people have been hospitalized to date. 1,173 are currently hospitalized. 308 are in ICU. 160 require ventilator support.
• There have been 1,477 deaths associated with COVID-19.
• 6,557 people have recovered.
• There have been 224 outbreaks in long-term care facilities, accounting for 5,289 cases and 830 deaths.
Avalon
All Avalon residents and staff have received their first COVID-19 test results, and all were negative. They will get a second test tomorrow. Quarantine will lift when the results from those tests are received if they are all negative.
The Gables and Monticello
Residents and staff of Monticello and The Gables had their first tests on Friday. We have received some of the results, and all are negative so far.
Parsons Health Center
All Parsons Health Center residents should be tested by the end of the week to establish our baseline testing. Testing for Parsons Health Center staff is still ongoing. All test results received so far have been negative.
The Parsons Health Center resident who tested positive after an extended hospitalization has now been tested again twice. Both tests came back negative, so she is considered recovered. This resident had no symptoms of COVID-19. She will remain on precautions due to her need to go out of the facility for medical treatments on a regular basis.
Thank you so much to our nursing, housekeeping, dining and all other employees working in Parsons Health Center for these outstanding results. Three residents have recovered from COVID-19 in Parsons Health Center so far.
Abundance of Caution
Westminster Canterbury remains committed to applying an abundance of caution toward our actions and responses to the threat coronavirus poses to older adults and anyone with medical conditions. Despite being extremely cautious and restrictive, we have experienced three resident and 12 staff cases of COVID-19. We have been very fortunate that we have not had an outbreak nor any deaths.
Many residents left campus today for essential business. This is an exciting step forward, but it comes with risks to everyone. Please exercise an abundance of caution when out in the community, including no handshakes and no hugs. It means keeping your distance, even from friends and family. It means asking people to wear a mask or back up if they are too close to you. It means protecting your Westminster Canterbury family, friends and neighbors by protecting yourself. Thank you in advance for your caution!
Windley Gravatt
Writer and Poet Charles de Lint said, “I don’t want to live in the kind of world where we don’t look out for each other. Not just the people that are close to us, but anybody who needs a helping hand. I can’t change the way anybody else thinks, or what they choose to do, but I can do my bit.”
By taking personal responsibility during this time, we are not just looking out for ourselves. We are looking out for our friends, neighbors and coworkers. People infected with COVID-19 can expose others even if they are not showing symptoms. As we begin to open spaces on our campus and venture outside the gates, it is critical that each of us stays up to date on the guidelines and follows them. We must wear our masks and social distance when around others. We need to limit our travel to other stores and other locations as much as possible. Stay safe and pay attention to your surroundings.
Our staff have done a wonderful job of taking this responsibility seriously throughout this crisis so that they can take care of themselves and our residents. They will continue to do so. We ask residents to do so for the staff. Thank you!
Lynn McClintock
A Service of Thanksgiving for the Montague Chapel will be held on Thursday, July 2. The service will be pre-recorded. Residents will have two weeks after the service, until July 15, to visit the Chapel as they wish. The stained glass windows will be moved on July 15. Worship services will continue to be broadcast from the chapel until the end of August. Thanks be to God for the Cary Montague Chapel’s history, and thanks be to God for its future!
Habakkuk 2:1-3 (Version: “The Message”)
What’s God going to say to my questions? I’m braced for the worst.
I’ll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon.
I’ll wait to see what God says,
how he’ll answer my complaint.
And then GOD answered: “Write this.
Write what you see.
Write it out in big block letters
so that it can be read on the run.
This vision-message is a witness
pointing to what’s coming.
It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait!
And it doesn’t lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
It’s on its way. It will come right on time.
Prayer
Gracious and loving God:
We hope and trust that you have a message for us—you say you do—but these days are hard. Each day seems more incredulous than the day before. We often feel as though there are more questions than answers, and then when we feel that we get close to an understanding, an almost-answer, things get jumbled up again. Even if you write the message with big block letters—we still may not understand what we are seeing.
Many of us are finding ourselves overwhelmed with the sweeping changes in our country and in our beloved city, the constant adaptation to Westminster Canterbury policies and procedures designed to keep us safe, but dizzying and hard to keep track of nonetheless—and persistent fears about the coronavirus. It just seems as though layer after of layer of facts and figures bombard us and disrupt our equilibrium, causing confusion and leaving us unsure of where to turn for respite. Our normal places of refuge—our families and houses of worship—our friends around the table in the Promenade, Marketplace or Canterbury Room—our offices and our favorite watering holes out in the community—many of these things are not accessible in the same way as before. So much has changed.
Protect residents in their going out and their coming in. Help them to be safe—on the road, in the grocery, at the gas pump, at the doctor’s office. Keep them safe.
As our world turns, we need you to help us to wait—not passively—but dynamically. Help us to see each day as a new birth. You promise never to leave us. As the world swirls around us—you don’t ask us to surrender in weak resignation. Help us awaken each day with an active openness and curiosity as to where you will be today. You call us to trust in you, to look for you. Even if you write the message with big block letters—and if we still don’t understand what we are seeing, help us to believe in the writer of those words, the author of salvation, in the one who has us in an eternal embrace of love and redemption.
For even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you. (Ps. 139:2)
Keep our eyes focused on you. So that what you say to us, we will one day understand.