Happy New Year! As we reflect on 2021, we have so much gratitude for our team members and are truly thankful to be able to share in the lives of our residents. 2021 started out with the terrific news of the COVID vaccine rollout and the excitement of planning our January vaccination clinics. Our team members, residents, and family members assisted tremendously with helping us reach our vaccination goals in record time. In February, we saw so many of our team member’s transition to super heroes as they assisted us in caring for our residents during a very rare ice storm. Several of our team members agreed to work sixteen hour shifts, day after day, while others volunteered to chance the icy roads to assist with getting our associates to and from work safely. We had many dedicated team members agree to sleep at the facility, while others packed up and stayed in local hotels for almost a solid week. The local community blessed us with snacks and covered us with prayer. We could not ask for a better group of people to surround us.
We were all excited to see visitation resume and loved seeing so many familiar faces return to our open doors. What a blessing to our facilities! We cannot thank you enough for doing your part to help us ensure our facilities are a safe place for our residents, team members and visitors. We realize that your time is valuable but agreeing to be routinely tested has assisted us in identifying countless asymptomatic visitors and preventing exposure to our staff and residents.
By the middle of September, we achieved a 100% vaccination rate for our team members!! This was a huge accomplishment and could not have been achieved without the dedication of our associates. We are blessed beyond measure to have a team of individuals that realize the safety of our residents is the number one priority. While we lost a few beloved faces in 2021, we are excited about the addition of some new top talent.
The holiday season is usually a time for joy and celebration in our facilities. This year gratitude has certainly filled the air for the past several weeks. Our residents were blessed with so many wonderful gifts from our staff, volunteers, and the loving communities that we serve. It was truly overwhelming to see the outpouring of love!
While we love a great celebration and have enjoyed sharing a few highlights from our year, I’m afraid that the holiday season also brought about a new, and rapidly spreading, COVID variant. A recent article published in the Texas Tribune reported that 1 in 3 rapid antigen tests in Texas is resulting as a positive. The Omicron variant has spread to the greater San Antonio area and has returned our community transmission rates to a dangerous level. While we have been given so much in 2021, we have to ask for more. Please consider temporarily limiting the number of in person visits you make to the facility, consider a phone booth visit, virtual visitation or phone call. We are happy to assist with zoom or facetime options, if appropriate. If you do visit, please allow an extra 15 minutes for a free rapid antigen test, as an additional layer of safety. Once you have completed the screening process, we ask that you please ensure that your face mask is covering your nose and mouth at all times while in the facility. Please frequently wash your hands and contact us immediately if you feel ill (this includes allergy like symptoms) in the days following your visit. Through our routine visitor testing, we have identified several asymptomatic visitors that tested positive. If you need a booster dose scheduled, or would like any educational material regarding the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, please let us know. We will be happy to assist.