RISING SUN, Md. — Its remote location on Telegraph Road in Cecil County did not spare the Calvert Manor Healthcare Center from the virus, which has sprung up in dozens of like facilities across the state shutting off family members from seeing their loved ones, like Susan Fahringer whose step-daughter’s grandfather lives there.
“Right now he’s fine, but they’re not letting anybody in,” said Fahringer. “It’s terrible, and there’s only like 120 beds.”
While the total case number has not been officially disclosed, Cecil County Executive Alan McCarthy addressed its rapid spread in the facility over the weekend.
“What started out as two isolated cases two days ago has now infected a number of other residents and the staff at this facility,” said McCarthy.
A Maryland National Guard strike team arrived over the weekend to help limit the spread of the virus to some of the county’s most vulnerable citizens.
“I don’t have anybody in a nursing home, but that doesn’t matter,” said Dee Kelly of nearby Little Britain Township across the Pennsylvania line. “I worry about all of the elderly, because it’s so easy for them to get sick. It doesn’t take very much at all.”
Where no one here has been hospitalized at last report, tragically, the state has already witnessed the impact of such an outbreak on the Pleasant View Nursing Home in Mount Airy where 18 people have died, cut off from their families as they battled the virus to the end.
“If something happens to them, they’re going to wheel them out and let nobody see them,” said Jake Dickey of Rising Sun. “So hopefully the last thing you said to them was a good thing, you know what I mean?”
A week ago, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan created the strike teams after 90 nursing homes and long-term care facilities reported cases of COVID-19.
