ATLANTA (AP) – As girls, Nadia Williams and her sister spent countless hours imagining their weddings. Now 30, Williams helped her younger sibling plan her big day, but when it came on Friday, she couldn’t be at her side as maid of honor. Instead, she put on a sequined dress, pulled her hair back, held a bouquet, and watched the ceremony alone, via Zoom, from a community for older adults.
Williams is among about 70 employees who are sheltering in place alongside more than 500 residents at an upscale assisted-living facility just outside Atlanta. Since the end of March, Park Springs has had employees live on its 61-acre campus instead of commute from home to protect residents from the coronavirus – an unusual approach, even as nursing homes have been among the hardest-hit places by the pandemic.
“Most facilities are so short on space,” said Betsy McCaughey, of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, a nonprofit that provides guidelines for preventing coronavirus at nursing homes. She lauded the idea of keeping staff on site, noting it also protects workers’ families and communities.
The approach has been used elsewhere: In France, staff at a nursing home ended a 47-day quarantine Monday. In Connecticut, the owner of an assisted-living facility that is housing staff on the premises, Tyson Belanger, has called for government funding to help more senior communities do so.
In Georgia, Williams, a health care administrator, said her duty to the residents came first, even though it meant missing the wedding.