COVID-19 kills 3 at Woodland facilities for people with developmental disabilities

Jul. 21--A COVID-19 outbreak at residential care facilities for people with developmental disabilities in Woodland reported last week has left three dead.

Yolo County reported an outbreak last Wednesday, noting six residents and four staff members had been infected with the coronavirus in connection with Woodland Residential Services. At the time it reported the outbreak, the virus had killed at least one resident.

As of Tuesday, at least two more deaths at the residential care facilities have been reported by Yolo County public health department. It's unclear whether it is staff members or residents who died from the virus. No new infections at the Woodland facilities have been reported since last Wednesday.

Woodland Residential Services, founded in 2002 and headquartered at 1250 Harter Ave., provides assistance and intermittent medical care to residents at seven different homes, according to the company's website. Each of the company's homes has a capacity of six residents, state records show.

"Clients participate, to the extent they are able, in every aspect of their lives," the website states. "They help cook their own food, wash their own dishes, fold their own clothes and make their own bed. They brush their own hair and teeth and feed themselves."

A representative from the company did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Neither the company nor the county has disclosed which homes have been affected by the outbreak, or how the virus spread through the facilities.

Woodland Residential Services is one of two nursing and residential care facilities in Yolo County that have had a deadly COVID-19 outbreak.

Stollwood Convalescent Hospital, a small nursing home amid the 14-acre campus of St. John's Retirement Village in Woodland, has had 17 people killed by the virus -- the deadliest nursing home outbreak in Northern California, and among the worst COVID-19 clusters in the state.

Public health officials have tried to prioritize longterm care facilities in efforts to curtail the virus spread, as many who reside at such locations are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19's worst symptoms. In California, roughly 40 percent of the state's coronavirus death toll can be attributed to deaths at nursing facilities.

Across six different Yolo County longterm care facilities, 112 people have been infected by the coronavirus, and 20 have been killed. About half of those infections are among staff members, rather than residents.

Coronavirus cases tied to longterm care facilities account for about 1 in 10 cases in Yolo County, where 1,196 people have been infected and 30 have died.

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