Maple Lawn Medical Care and Rehabilitation in Coldwater is trying to open up this week. It’s been a difficult and emotional situation. Maple Lawn is now doing some backtracking as yet another staff member has tested positive for COVID-19. Maple Lawn administrators report that the employee is not a nursing staff employee, and has limited contact with residents. They’re hopeful it’s an isolated case or a false positive like the last one. The staff member will be re-tested to verify the result. But now Maple Lawn is required to test all facility residents and staff. Again. This latest round of testing began Saturday. The medical and long term care facility was forced to shut down for all public visits last month after an employee tested positive for the virus.  Maple Lawn had been setting up outdoor visitations for patients with friends and family. But that was stopped after the first positive test. The Coldwater facility resumed that option for residents and families just last week. In the past couple of weeks, all other employee virus tests came back negative. Until this new one.

It’s a sensitive issue. About one-third of all the deaths in Michigan claimed to be connected to the CIVID-19 virus have occurred in the state's nursing and long-term care facilities.  Many put the blame directly on Governor Gretchen Whitmer for requiring those facilities to accept new or returning patients after they’ve tested positive for the virus. And late last week the Governor vetoed legislation even supported by many of her fellow Democrats, that would have ended that practice.

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