Durham nursing home resident hospitalized with virus, staffer in isolation at home

The resident lives at PruittHealth - Carolina Point, at 5935 Mount Sinai Road, and was taken to the hospital after experiencing respiratory problems.

"We have been in daily communications with the facility since it became concerned about a resident with respiratory symptoms over two weeks ago," Orange County Health Director Quintana Stewart said in a statment. "Together, we have been monitoring symptomatic residents and testing suspected close contacts as needed."

Carolina Point has a Durham address but is in Orange County.

A statement from PruittHealth, which owns nursing homes across the Southeast, did not include any additional information about the patient but said Carolina Point is stepping up cleaning protocols, no longer allowing visitors and screening the patients and staff daily.

An employee from Carolina Point reached out to WRAL News with concerns that there is not enough personal protective equipment for everyone inside the nursing home. Many other health care workers have said the same thing.

So far, five other patients in PruittHealth facilities tested positive for coronavirus, according to a press release. Earlier in March, one of those patients died of the virus in Georgia.

The Carolina Point staff member who tested positive for the virus is in isolation at home, officials said.

With the senior population most at risk for serious illness from COVID-19 and residents living in close quarters, viruses can spread quickly in nursing homes.

Northampton rest home patient dies of coronavirus

James Glascock, 65, died last Friday after a short stay at the Pine Forest Rest Home in Northampton County.

His daughter, Elizabeth Glascock, said her father spent "a little over a week" at the facility. He arrived there on March 12 and was taken to a hospital in Virginia on March 20 when he started showing symptoms.

The rest home was identified as the site of a cluster of 24 confirmed cases, which makes up the vast majority of Northampton County's 26 total confirmed cases.