Three more COVID-19 related deaths were reported Thursday at a nursing home in the East Bay, making Alameda County one of the largest clusters for coronavirus outbreaks in the Bay Area.
Excell Health Care Center on High Street in Oakland confirmed that 36 people tested positive for COVID-19 and three patients died from the virus.
“High Street has a lot of care facilities in this East Oakland neighborhood and it kind of brings it close to home,” said resident Nenna Joiner.
“We told the department of public health this was going to happen,” said Pat McGinnis, executive director of California Advocacy for Nursing Home Reform. “This is one of the better facilities a five-star facility, imagine what’s happening in some of the other facilities.”
Excell Health Care Center joins a list of other care homes here in Alameda County where coronavirus complications have caused deaths.
At least 13 people have died at the Gateway Rehabilitation and Care Center in Hayward and nationwide, the numbers are grim.
So far, there have been 9,000 deaths at more than 4,500 facilities.
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“The reason for this of course is they are unprepared, they are under staffed they don’t have staff training,” said McGinnis.
She added that those are the types of things that need to change in order to stop the coronavirus spread in nursing home nationwide.
