Mathews resident Betty Armistead has nothing but good things to say about Walter Reed Convalescent and Rehabilitation Center in Gloucester. Her brother is being cared for at the facility, and she said the staff has been diligent about safeguarding the residents there and keeping her abreast of every aspect of her brother’s care.

“Walter Reed has been wonderful,” she said. “They call and let me know when they’re changing my brother’s medications, and they send an automated call every week about the COVID situation.”

Armistead said that when her brother was due for a check-up with his cardiologist, she called Walter Reed because she knew what that would mean—he would be quarantined for two weeks after his return in order to keep the other residents safe. She said the staff at Walter Reed worked with her to contact the cardiologist and have his check-up instead handled remotely via an electronic monitoring system so he could avoid being quarantined.

“Most of the nurses go a little beyond what’s expected,” she said.

All of that is why Armistead was upset when she began getting calls from friends who had read in last week’s Gazette-Journal that there had been a COVID-19 outbreak at the center.

“I was livid,” she said. “I knew that somebody was not telling the truth. Either they hadn’t told me something, or the Gazette was blowing something out of proportion.”

In fact, the article—a weekly update of local, district and statewide COVID-19 statistics—was correct, and was based on figures released just last week by the Virginia Department of Health. But the underlying information was old news to family members of Walter Reed residents, thanks to those weekly automated calls the center sends out every week.

Bryant Hudgins, administrator of Walter Reed Convalescent and Rehabilitation Center, said the reason that the VDH’s data system showed an outbreak at the facility was because of the length of time it takes for test results to come through. A delay in test results for one person caused two cases to show up in the VDH system during the same two-week testing period, he said. Since the VDH considers two cases to be an outbreak, that’s how it was listed in the agency’s online database, even though the two people weren’t at the facility at the same time, and both of them have since left.

“Even if a test was done two weeks earlier, it still goes on that reporting period,” he said.

Hudgins that his staff tries to keep the families of the center’s residents well-informed, no matter if it’s “good, bad, or ugly.” He said that early in the pandemic people expressed the opinion that facilities in general weren’t being transparent, so he and his team put a system in place to provide updates to make sure everyone knew what was going on.

Mark Klyczek, president and CEO of Virginia Health Services, Walter Reed’s parent company, said that the diligent weekly testing that began at the facility in July under Gov. Ralph Northam’s latest COVID-19 orders has been mostly successful, but that one resident who had repeatedly tested negative had suddenly tested positive and was moved to the unit designated for COVID-19 cases. In a subsequent test, that resident tested negative once again, he said, and was discharged home.

The incident raises the question of false positives, said Klyczek, something he said has occurred in all of Virginia Health Services’ facilities.

In addition to that resident, a student nurse who was doing a clinical rotation at Walter Reed as part of her studies tested positive toward the end of her time there. She has graduated and moved on, he said, but because her case was identified while she was at the facility, she is still listed there.

Klyczek said that, all told, Walter Reed has had three people test positive for the virus since March, one of whom was an employee. He said the biggest current issue is the length of time it takes to receive test results. He said it takes seven days in many cases, “which makes it difficult to manage the results proactively.”

Walter Reed is a large facility that tests over 200 people during each round of weekly testing, said Hudgins. When testing first began, there were long waiting periods for the results, then, for a while, the time dropped to just 48 hours. Now it’s back up to seven to 10 days, he said. Because of that, Walter Reed has begun to send its samples to out-of-state labs for quicker results. On-site test kits are now being rolled out for use on symptomatic people in long-term care facilities, he said, and that should help improve the situation.

Hudgins said the key to keeping the outbreak in check is to “treat everyone as if they’re carriers,” and that’s where the use of personal protective equipment comes in.

“You’ve got to be vigilant in making sure that everyone wears PPE all the time,” he said. “It’s non-negotiable. You have to have that in place. Fortunately, we’ve been very successful in handling the virus, but that could change at the drop of a hat.”

But Hudgins and his team are working hard to make sure that doesn’t happen.