COFAR blog

After months of failing to report the COVID-19 status of staff working in provider-run group homes and other facilities funded by the Department of Developmental Services (DDS), the good news is the Baker administration is at least finally starting to take those numbers publicly into account.

Staff-related testing information is now contained in weekly state facilities reports, which are posted online every Wednesday evening.

The bad news is the testing data listed are for all “congregate care sites operated by state-contracted (human services) providers.” The numbers of provider staff testing positive are not broken down among facilities funded by DDS, the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Youth Services, and possibly other agencies falling within an umbrella agency — the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS).

The latest weekly state facilities report doesn’t break the data down by individual provider either. And that’s not to mention that there is still no testing even being done on DDS community-based day program staff.

The newly reported numbers of total EOHHS provider-staff who have tested positive in the past month can be found on Page 6 of the latest weekly report.

In addition to the lack of a breakdown of staff testing numbers by EOHHS department, there are other questions about the nature of the data presented in the latest report. It’s not clear, for instance, what is meant in the report by “congregate care” staff, particularly whether that refers only to group homes or includes larger Intermediate Care Facilities (ICFs) such as the DDS-run Hogan Regional Center and Wrentham Developmental Center.

Also, the Page 6 data reflects two-week testing periods while the rest of the report shows current numbers of COVID cases in the latest week.

This lack of specific and clear information in the weekly reports continues to be concerning, particularly since the data that we do have shows what appears to be the start of a second wave of the COVID-19 virus within the DDS system, in addition to the second wave that has hit the state as a whole.

Data show a surge of provider staff cases

The staff data on Page 6 of the latest weekly state facilities report show that the number of staff testing positive for COVID-19 in all EOHHS provider-run group homes started from a baseline of 240 as of September 30. Those positive provider staff rose  by 91 in the first half of October, and by 245 in the second half of October, based on biweekly surveillance testing.

It is important to note that the baseline number of 240 is not a cumulative number of the total number of staff that contracted the virus since the start of the pandemic, but is only the number found to be positive during baseline testing conducted between August 1 and September 30.

The increase of 336 in positive staff cases during the two biweekly surveillance testing periods in October is a jump of 140%; and it would appear to mean that some 400 staff in provider-run group homes were potentially positive as of October 28.

Of course, the document doesn’t show how many of those staff are in DDS group homes, although DDS does have the largest number of group homes of any EOHHS department.

On page 2 of the report, the data show the number of residents testing positive in DDS provider-run group homes jumped from 46 to 65, as of the 7-day period ending November 3. The number of residents testing positive in state-operated group homes rose in that same period by only 1, to a total of 10.

State-operated “congregate care” staff cases

The number of staff, specifically in DDS, DYS, and DMH state-operated “congregate care” sites are also now listed on Page 6 of the latest weekly state facilities report. The number of those staff testing positive started from a baseline of 6 as of September 30, according to the latest report. Positive staff in those facilities rose by 2 in the first half of October, and by 20 in the second half of October.

Pages 1 and 2 of the weekly state facilities report have continued to list 7-day residential and staff data for both the Hogan and Wrentham facilities and state-operated group homes.

Surge in COVID cases could affect visitation

With the numbers showing, or at least implying, an increase in staff and some residents testing positive for COVID in the DDS system, DDS has indicated that it is leaving it up to providers to determine whether to reimpose restrictions on visitation by family members and guardians.

While visitation had been sharply restricted in the first several months of the pandemic, the latest guidance on the DDS website, which was issued in September, continues to allow both in-home and outdoor visitation.

However, as of the end of October, at least one provider was banning in-house visits. We received a notice from a parent of a resident of a group home run by American Training, a DDS provider, that all visits inside the provider’s group homes would be prohibited due to an increase in COVID rates in the Andover area. The parent said she was told visits to the home would still be permitted outdoors.

In response to a query from COFAR, a DDS spokesman said that despite the Department’s guidance, final decisions on visitation are being left to the discretion of the providers.

Unfortunately, we’ve heard about a number of cases in which providers have used the COVID crisis to ban or discourage visitation in order to keep family members and guardians in the dark about conditions in their homes.

Until a vaccine becomes available, it is clear that the COVID crisis will continue to present a major threat to DDS clients and staff, just as the crisis has for the general population throughout the country.

In the meantime, we hope that the Baker administration will take further steps to improve and clarify its public reporting of the testing status of clients and staff in the DDS system, and will provide clearer guidance and direction to both families and providers regarding visitation.