SEMINOLE, Fla. — After dozens of residents at the Seminole Pavilion Rehabilitation & Nursing Facility were removed and taken to local hospitals this week for what officials say are "COVID-19 related" cases, two more of those patients died Friday.
- Dozens of Seminole nursing home residents hospitalized
- Officials say the cases are "COVID-19 related"
- Three patients have died so far
- PREVIOUS STORY: 30 positive cases at Freedom Square Seminole Nursing Pavilion
An 84-year-old woman and 66-year-old man both died Friday, according to Bay News 9's partner newspaper the Tampa Bay Times. Those deaths bring the death toll at the facility to three. A 74-year-old man died April 10.
Now health officials have decided to shut down the nursing home. They plan to start evacuating the 39 remaining residents on Friday, according to a message from the county administrator’s office to the seven Pinellas County Commissioners. The facility will be decontaminated and its staff will be given additional training, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
On Thursday night, first responders in full protective gear loaded 20 patients at the facility into waiting ambulances and transported them to hospitals. Officials haven’t said whether the people transported tested positive for the virus, only that the cases were related to it.
Earlier this week, the Times reported that about 30 people from the same facility were taken to hospitals because of the Coronavirus. It also reported that 27 people living and working at the facility tested positive, with the first confirmed case on April 9.
It took weeks for that information to become public and some lawmakers aren’t happy about it. The State’s Department of Health will only confirm the number of COVID-19 cases at nursing homes, and not which nursing homes the cases are at.
“Floridians need to have this type of information available to them, and it's been hidden and it's been obfuscated. And so, the governor is dealing with a system that I think we need to fix, legislatively, going forward to provide greater accountability,” said Senator Gary Farmer, a Democrat representing Lighthouse Point.
At this time, officials aren’t releasing the condition of the patients taken from the Seminole facility.