For all of us, the last few days have been unsettling as we see more confirmed coronavirus cases across the country and along the west coast, especially among older adults. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have been directly impacted. 

As we have communicated over the last several days, we have exercised an abundance of caution and put in place heightened measures to protect residents living in our communities and staff.

We have been working closely with our local health authorities and tracking updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations, specifically those focused on protecting seniors. Based on what we have learned, we have decided to take the next precautionary step and limit non-essential visits to our Washington state communities. While we have no identified coronavirus cases at any Aegis Living community, we are initiating this policy voluntarily to enhance the protection of our residents and staff.

As we continue our prevention efforts, we are counting on you to assist us in maintaining healthy community environments. We respectfully ask all individuals coming for non-essential reasons, including family members, to refrain from visiting the community at this time. To further protect the integrity of this approach, we ask that you not take any residents out of the community for any reason that is not essential to their health. In addition, we have amended a few other practices to further promote resident safety:

• We are revising dining meal times to serve smaller groups of residents while still allowing residents to enjoy mealtime together.
• We will continue to host activities residents enjoy daily with our staff while limiting outside vendors.
• We will continue promoting outdoor activity on our community grounds, but restrict outings on our buses.

We continue our advanced, daily disinfection procedures and are prepared with extra supplies and resources for our communities should we need them.

It is a great privilege to serve our residents and we will continue to work diligently to promote their health and safety. Despite the concern we all have, our residents and staff are enjoying activities together, eating delicious meals and spirits remain high. We strive to keep that joy and happiness alive through the good times and the tough times and are so proud of the staff that achieve our ambition every day.

Be well everyone.