Five employees have tested positive for COVID-19 at an assisted-living facility that has already seen two residents die from the disease and over a dozen residents become infected.
Officials at Ridgefield Crossings, a facility operated by Benchmark Senior Living off Route 7, said Thursday an additional employee there is awaiting test results for the virus.
“These associates, along with all associates who were identified as having high exposure to confirmed COVID-19 cases, have already been outside of the community on leave to limit the risk of potential spread of the virus,” a spokesperson for the facility said.
Two residents of the assisted-living home have died after they were taken to the hospital with the disease.
A third death from the virus reported in Ridgefield was a resident from a private home who was not connected to Benchmark Senior Living, Health Director Ed Briggs said Thursday.
The deaths related to Benchmark include an 88-year-old man who state officials on March 18 said was the first person to die from the coronavirus in the state of Connecticut.
On Monday, a second person who had been a resident at the facility died.
In confirming Ridgefield’s second death from the coronavirus, a spokesman for the facility said tests of all the residents at the assisted-living home found 16 other residents there who had the illness.
As of Thursday, a spokesperson for Benchmark Senior Living said no additional residents have tested positive beyond those 16.
The five employees who are sick and the employee awaiting test results have “already been outside of the community on leave to limit the risk of potential spread of the virus,” the spokesperson said. Those employees are continuing to be paid while they are on leave, she said.
The assisted-living home, which includes a memory-care facility for people with cases of dementia, also shares some part-time nursing aides with Laurel Ridge, a separate nursing home located on the same campus.
In a statement, Benchmark Senior Living said they could not prevent workers from working at other companies that would take them outside of Ridgefield Crossings.
