Cary assisted living residents ‘doing OK’ after coronavirus case confirmed
Senior-citizen residents at Cary’s Woodland Terrace community remained upbeat Saturday after a confirmed case of coronavirus kept them under quarantine.
“Things are OK,” Diana Hatch, who shares an apartment with her husband, said in a phone interview. “They’ve been putting games on the in-house television. They’ve been putting all the exercises on TV. We’ll just do what happens as things go along.”
Executive Director Matt Towler announced Friday that a resident had contracted the virus and said the cause is uncertain.
Even before the case was announced and residents were quarantined, Towler had said visitors would be limited to health-care workers or for end-of-life reasons. He said in a message posted on the Woodland Terrace site that family members were encouraged to practice “virtual visits.”
“Everybody is pretty much confined to their rooms,” Robert Carter, a resident who serves on the Woodland Terrace board, said by phone Saturday. “We’re taking every precaution. No visitors except health professionals. All meals are delivered straight to the apartment doors. Everybody has gloves on.”
Wake County has reported 23 coronavirus cases as of Friday night.
Hatch said residents had experienced this level of precaution before during a previous viral outbreak, which she recalled being three or four years ago.
“We were all very happy to come out of it,” she said. “We’ve been OK so far. I think so. I do.”
This story was originally published March 21, 2020 at 9:52 AM.