The Powell Valley Care Center has again been shut down to visitors after an employee tested positive for COVID-19 last month.

All the center’s employees are screened prior to their shifts, which includes asking them if they have any symptoms and checking their temperatures. According to Care Center Administrator Ryan Brinkerhoff, an employee complained of a sore throat but assumed it was related to all the smoke from the forest fires.

Erring on the side of caution, the employee was sent to get tested, and the test came back positive on Aug. 20.

“It was out of the blue,” Brinkerhoff said, because the employee had not been to any large gatherings and had not traveled out of state or come in contact with anyone confirmed to have the disease.

The center will be closed to visitors until a third round of testing of all employees and residents is complete; the first round of testing came back all negative. They expect the results of the second round this week.

The center was closed to visitors early last spring and didn’t begin to permit face-to-face visits again until the end of June; the visits are done outdoors and all visitors are screened, just like employees, prior to the visit.

The facility was also allowing window visits, where visitors could see their loved ones through a window and talk on the phone. But these, too, have been restricted in response to the employee’s positive test.

Elderly people, especially those with pre-existing conditions, are among the most likely to develop complications and die from COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control, people over the age of 85 are 13 times more likely to be hospitalized after contracting COVID-19 and 630 times more likely to die from the disease than people aged 18 to 29.

In May, an outbreak of positive cases at a nursing home in Worland ultimately led to six deaths and a late June outbreak at a memory care facility in Billings was followed by a total of 17 deaths related to COVID-19, according to reporting by the Billings Gazette.

Powell’s care center, as well as Powell Valley Healthcare’s long-term living facility, The Heartland, have been extra cautious during the pandemic, and this most recent case is the first time an employee tested positive. 

Brinkerhoff said the center is prepared should a resident test positive. They have rooms set up so the resident can be quarantined within the facility. They’re stocked up well with personal protective equipment, and they’re doing regular screenings of staff and patients for the foreseeable future.

“Hopefully, this is just a speed bump and we’ll soon get back to normal — whatever normal is anymore,” Brinkerhoff said.