New health procedures for New York nursing homes were announced on Sunday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, including a new requirement for all nursing home staff to be tested twice a week.

New procedures:

All nursing home staff must be tested for COVID-19 twice a week. This is mandatory.

Nursing homes that cannot provide adequate care to patients who are positive for COVID-19 must transfer them to another facility that can care for them — if they cannot find one, they must call the Department of Health, which will help them find another facility.

Hospitals cannot discharge a COVID-19-positive patient back to a nursing home.

Nursing homes that do not follow the health procedures will lose their licenses. The governor said that might sound harsh — but what is truly harsh is people dying.

The procedures are in addition to previous measures taken in nursing homes, including restrictions on visitation, PPE requirements for staff, requirements for staff to be checked for COVID-19 symptoms, and a requirement for homes to notify residents and family members of a COVID-19 positive test or death within 24 hours.

The governor says that new hospitalizations, intubations, and the total hospitalization rate continues to trend downwards statewide. The state lost an additional 207 lives to the virus since the day before.

Cuomo also says that the state is now investigating up to 85 cases and two additional deaths related to a COVID-19-related illness in young children that presents symptoms similar to Kawasake disease and toxic shock syndrome.

—- 13 WHAM