Apr 9, 2020 3 min read

A resident of a nursing home in Washington has contracted COVID-19 less than a week after one of its employees tested positive for the virus.

Presbyterian SeniorCare Network’s Southminster Place has quarantined the resident with coronavirus after the home “decided to err on the side of abundant caution” and offer tests to residents, said Lisa Fischetti, the center’s spokeswoman.

The announcement Wednesday was made a day before a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center physician said social distancing appears to be working in preventing a strain on hospitals in the Pittsburgh region.

“We were warned this would be our Pearl Harbor week, said Donald Yealy, chairman of emergency medicine at UPMC.

“It looks like we’ve flattened the curve, Yealy said when the university also announced it would lead a worldwide effort to verify which drugs would best treat COVID-19.

“We’re not seeing the spikes and surges as have been seen in other parts of the country,” Yealy said.

Derek C. Angus, chairman of critical care at Pitt and UPMC, said no one has developed any specific treatment for COVID-19.

He said researchers in Pittsburgh have decided to use an adaptive clinical trial model that relies on a type of artificial intelligence known as reinforcement learning to identify the best, evidence-backed therapy for COVID-19 much faster than using the traditional scientific approach.

“We do not have the luxury of time,” Angus said Thursday.

The therapies will be tested on admitted patients with moderate-to-severe conditions to save time by quickly eliminating the recipes that work poorly.

“I don’t know what will work best,” Angus said.

Meanwhile, Allegheny County’s COVID-19 death toll grew Thursday to 12, an increase of two from the previous day, the county health department said.

Pennsylvania registered 29 new coronavirus deaths, taking its total to 338. There were 1,989 positive cases statewide, taking the total to 18,228.

Washington and Greene counties each had four new cases of the virus, taking their totals to 63 and 21, respectively. Westmoreland County, which registered its first death from the virus Wednesday, had seven new positive cases, taking its total to 190.

State health Secretary Rachel Levine said her department has been working closely with nursing homes and long-term care facilities to implement guidelines on preventing COVID-19 in their businesses. She said their residents are “some of our most vulnerable citizens.”

She said the state has not determined a specific date for when life in Pennsylvania can return to normal, that the reopening of businesses could take place “community by community, county by county.”

“The virus determines the timeline,” she said.

The number of cases continues to climb in the state, especially in Philadelphia and northeastern Pennsylvania.

“We need to maintain our vigilance,” Levine said.