To date, we have been Covid free here at Serenity of Commerce. No positive tests & no symptoms with our residents, just a mountain of stress. Since the outbreak of Covid that entered the state of Michigan in March 2020, we have been working closely with the Oakland County Health Department in interpreting Governor Whitmers Executive orders & the CDC guidelines for the assisted living community. As the country debates the authority of these executive orders and the violations of our personal freedoms and rights; we just decided to keep our world "small" and focus on our current ladies. Ultimately, we locked everything down and self-isolated until June 2020...and it worked for us.
Our staff did a great job in limiting their own personal interactions (stores, banking, gas, coffee shops, fast foods, extended families on or before work days) and we just took it one day at a time and focused on small victories each day with our ladies. Certainly the stress of Covid (locking down) caused intense stress upon our ladies, their families and our staff. All our ladies have some degree of cognitive decline, and not seeing their families was extremely rough on our ladies. At times, even our staff was not in agreement with how we handled "end of life" (by natural causes) for some of our residents and their families. In June with the sun shining and Flu season ending, we opened up and started having immediate family visits outside our home on the patio. It's been amazing to see our ladies light up at the reunion with their families.
As the summer months are winding down, we are starting to discuss our upcoming procedures and policies regarding new admissions, visitation procedures, up-coming Flu season, schools starting back up and how that affects us. As we collaborate on these talking points, I thought it would benefit those interested in viewing some of our data and resources that we are following:
Sept 10th, 2020: Updated restrictions on "ENTRY" into residential care facilities from State of Michigan.
CDC coronavirus
CDC recommendations on quarantine
CDC keep covid-19 out of long term care facilities. Learn what staff, vendors should do to protect residents and keep Covid-19 out.
Dr. Fauci says he doesn't regret telling Americans not to wear masks at the beginning of the pandemic.
Dr. Seheult:
MedCram - Medical Lectures Explained CLEARLY by Dr. Seheult (Updates daily on covid - excellent teacher.)
Dr. John Campbell:
(Retired UK Doctor who reads and summarizes current medical journals from around the world. He looks at Covid through an international perspective vs. US news. He gives daily updates mostly from a teaching perspective. Conservative approach to the information and easy for me to listen too.
Andrew W. Saul, M.S., Ph.D. :
(Researcher with a different perspective than the mainstream media. focused on improving the immune system).
Largest hospital chain in the state of New York using Vitamin C in treatment of covid-19 patients: (4 different news sources)
Potential Benefits of UV lighting installed in your Furnace: (we installed UV lighting in our two furnaces)