PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Eleven more residents of the Rhode Island Veterans Home have tested positive for the coronavirus, but none are showing symptoms, state officials said Monday.
All residents at the state-run facility in Bristol were tested over the weekend after one showed symptoms of COVID-19 and tested positive Friday for the virus that causes the disease, according to David Levesque, spokesman for the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
There are now 12 cases at the home.
“The home’s leadership and staff have taken measures to isolate these residents and are currently notifying their family members,” he said in a written statement.
The results of some tests are pending. Testing of staff members continues; four staffers previously tested positive.
The home has 192 beds and currently has 180 residents, Levesque said.
The Rhode Island Department of Health reported 11 new COVID-19-related deaths on Sunday, for a total of 226.
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REOPENING COLLEGES
Reopening college campuses this fall should be a “national priority” for the economy as the nation recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, the president of Brown University wrote.
Higher education employs about 3 million people and as recently as the 2017-18 school year accounted for more than $600 billion of spending into the national gross domestic product, Christina Paxson wrote in an opinion piece in The New York Times on Sunday.
The loss of revenue if colleges do not reopen in the fall would be “catastrophic” and could force the closure of many institutions, she wrote.
Colleges and universities should develop public health plans now, including aggressive testing, contact tracing and changing how large events are handled, wrote Paxson, who has led the Ivy League institution in Providence since 2012.
Students should prepare for big changes to campus life, she said. They may be required to wear masks on campus, and even large lecture classes may still be held online.
“Imagine athletics events taking place in empty stadiums, recital halls with patrons spaced rows apart and virtual social activities replacing parties,” she wrote.
