Orlando Sentinel: Why Encore at Avalon Park doesn’t belong on the state list of coronavirus cases

By LISA MARIA GARZA
ORLANDO SENTINEL |APR 19, 2020

(Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

An Orlando long-term care facility is trying to get its name removed from a list released Saturday night by the state Department of Health of facilities where patients, residents or staff have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Twenty-six long-term care facilities in Central Florida are among 303 in the state with positive cases, according to the list released under orders from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Encore at Avalon Park, an assisted living and memory care facility, is included in the list but does not currently have any COVID-19 cases, said executive director Kimberly Edwards.

“If we have a positive case in the building, we have to notify the family members,” Edwards said Sunday. “Publishing a list like that without giving an accurate picture is very damaging. Of course it put a lot of resident families on edge.”

The state did not specify how many cases were at each nursing home and assisted-living facility, nor whether the victims are staff or residents. It also did not say if anyone died of the disease at those facilities.

In total, 1,694 cases have been reported at Florida’s long-term care facilities as of Saturday night. There have been 169 deaths.

Edwards said one person at Encore at Avalon Park, whom she wouldn’t identify as an employee or resident, took a test and received a “presumptive positive” result from the state Department of Health. That person has not been in the facility for 12 days, Edwards said, and took two subsequent tests that later turned out to be negative for the coronavirus.

But the state is including any facilities on the list that had a presumptive positive result, even if it was determined later through more testing that the person doesn’t have the disease, according to Kent Donahue, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health in Orange County.

Donahue said in an email that removing the Encore facility from the list is “beyond our local control” and would need to be done at the state level.

The state Department of Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Edwards said she’s been communicating regularly with the families of residents. Staff members are taking the precautions mandated by the state, which includes suspending visitation. Residents and employees wear masks and have their temperatures taken multiple times each day.

“We know our residents are the most vulnerable of populations and we’re all scared about getting [the coronavirus] in our building,” she said. “But we’re doing everything possible to keep it out of the building.”

lgarza@orlandosentinel.com