Updates on Our Response to COVID-19

Stay In the Know

There is nothing more important to us than the health and well-being of our residents, team members, and the community at large. We are doing our part to reduce the spread of the virus and mitigate the burden on our healthcare system.

The continuing presence and prevalence of COVID-19 throughout the United States and the world has brought challenges and changes to all of our lives. We continue to be vigilant in adhering to strict safety precautions while making life as comfortable and enjoyable as possible for our residents.

Preventing transmission of the coronavirus requires us to be vigilant about personal hygiene, sanitation, and healthy social distancing habits. We are working closely with our healthcare partners and government agencies to implement protocols to reduce the risk of exposure to our residents and team members.

Some of these changes have required residents, families and friends to make big adjustments to routines and interactions. We appreciate your patience and trust that we are putting safety and wellbeing of all residents at the forefront.

We continue to provide all services. Our dedicated team members continue to come to work and provide compassionate care and are being creative about life enrichment activities and family communication. We are a community — as a community we share openly and often. This page is designed to give you up to date information about the coronavirus and our responses.

For further resources check out this page.

August 5, 2021

Our priorities remain focused on mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and the Delta variant, which is highly contagious and in some cases more severe. It is currently the most common variant causing new infections in California. The CiminoCare communities are doing our part: encouraging vaccinations, mandatory mask wearing for staff, increased visitor screening and regular testing.

All of our communities are continuing to provide full dining services, offering the majority of our activities and we are allowing visitors who follow our enhanced screening protocols.

We are following the guidance from the Department of Public Health and will do what is needed so that our residents, their families and our team members can continue to be part of community-life. It takes everyone working together to beat this virus.

Mark Cimino, CEO Gets COVID-19 Vaccine, Leading the Way for His Team.

Watch as Mark Cimino receives his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Mark and the River Fountains of Lodi staff and residents were among the first to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine through CiminoCare.

“This is the only way to end this pandemic, I did this for our residents, team members, families and our community,” says Mark. We are all excited to be on the path toward a safer and healthier future.

CiminoCare is encouraging all staff and residents to take the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is available at their community. Vaccine Clinics are scheduled for all CiminoCare communities over the coming weeks.

For more information on the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, visit FDA.gov.

November 30, 2020

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is providing some helpful strategies for communicating with residents at assisted living communities. We are continuing to find creative ways to keep residents, friends and families connected. Contact your community administrator to learn more.

Thanksgiving Holiday Update

Everyone is rethinking the traditions of the holidays this year. Thanksgiving has usually been seen as a time to pack the house full of relatives and share a feast around a large table. Now, that would create a lot of worries, especially for older adults like our residents. Instead, families are looking at new traditions, including small outdoor gatherings, virtual eggnog toasts, decorating pumpkins, setting up the outdoor decorations or watching some of their holiday favorite movies. These new traditions allow families to see each other and create new memories while still following the safety requirements of mask wearing, washing hands and socially distancing.

At CiminoCare, we are committed to finding that delicate balance of safety and life engagement for our residents, our families and our staff. That is why we continue to stay focused on the foundations of our COVID-19 Response Plan:

Screening
Masks Wearing (and all PPE)
Hand Washing and Sanitizing
Socially Distancing
Disinfecting
Testing

And with the help of our residents, family members and team members, we are finding creative ways to keep everyone engaged and to brainstorm on how we can be part of keeping our communities safe while allowing the feelings of compassion and gratitude of the season to flow.

Each CiminoCare community is working on a special Thanksgiving celebration based on the suggestions from residents, staff and family. This information is being shared with families this week.

July 7, 2020

The uptick in COVID-19 positive cases is a concern for public health officials and the general public. We continue to be diligent with the Five Pillars of Safety:

Wear a mask
Wash or sanitize hands often
Practice physical distancing
Continue with screening
Self-isolate if you are not feeling well

We continue to support the public health initiatives and public health clinicians who are working hard to stop the spread of the virus. The asymptomatic cases are the most difficult to track because carriers of the virus do not know they could be spreading it to others. At the request of our licensing agency we will begin random surveillance COVID-19 testing of our staff. Every 14 days we will ask 10% of our team to be tested for the virus. This will allow us and the public health team to better monitor any infections and mitigate spread if any staff member does test positive.

Thank you for your support and patience. We will continue to share general updates here however, if you have specific questions please contact your community administrator.

June 2, 2020

Thank you to all of our family members and friends for your continued support and patience. We have been working very hard to keep residents and staff safe and healthy. This has come with many inconveniences and sacrifices to residents, staff and family members.

Many of you are seeing your retail, restaurants and downtowns opening up as officials lift Stay at Home orders. Because we serve the most susceptible and vulnerable to COVID-19, we are opening outside services and visitation much slower. The Governor’s plan has our communities as part of the Phase 4 opening plan. However, we are following the County and CDC guidelines which are allowing us to begin to look at easing a couple of restrictions if we can continue to practice social distancing, wearing masks, infection control and symptom screening.

In the next couple of weeks we will be offering limited and scheduled family visits. During the scheduled visit we will set up a comfortable outdoor area where family members can visit with their loved one. There will be specific rules that everyone must follow to keep all residents safe and healthy:

Everyone must wear face coverings (unless it is not safe to do so),
remain at least 6 feet apart ( we know this will be hard),
perform hand hygiene before and after their visit.
Visitors and residents will have their temperature checked and symptoms screened prior to the visit.
Visitors should not bring food, gifts or supplies during the visit.

This virus is still around and is very contagious. We remain diligent in all of our efforts. As we add additional visits and programs, we will need your help more than ever in following the safety restrictions and listening to team members’ instructions. If we have any positive cases in our community we will need to discontinue all modified programs and go back to full self-quarantine. We believe that if we are all diligent, together we can do this. We will be sending out more detailed information to family members shortly.

May 6, 2020

Despite some loosening of requirements in some areas, The Shelter in Place requirements for our communities remain in place at least through the end of May. We expect to have ongoing restrictions for the foreseeable future including:

Continued screening of staff and essential health care personnel
Restrictions on community gatherings
Restrictions on visitors

As we focus on the health and safety of residents and staff, we also know the importance of connections and activities. We are working with our teams to develop more engagement and exercise for our residents, including some outside activities. When residents go outside they are at least 6 feet apart, they are wearing masks and washing their hands after any interactions. We appreciate our families and friends who have been patient and have found creative ways to participate in virtual visits and shout outs to residents. We want to continue to work together to fight this virus while maintaining safety and quality of life for our residents, team members and families.

April 23, 2020

As many have heard in the news, there is a lot of focus on expanding COVID-19 testing. The CDC and our state and local Health Departments’ recommendations on who should be tested and when someone should be tested continue to evolve as Clinicians learn more about signs, symptoms and the timeline when someone with COVID-19 is contagious. We will keep you updated on how this impacts our current practices.

We continue to advocate for our team members and residents’ well being and health We are focusing on infection control, screenings and daily resident assessments. In addition, Stanford physicians are providing online training on how to safely wear and remove PPE during this time. These types of training help to keep everyone feeling more confident and safe.

We continue to communicate directly with residents, team members and families about specific requests and protocols at individual communities. These connections are very important to us.

If you have any questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

April 9, 2020

The CDC data suggests that the Stay at Home orders for non-essential workers, social distancing, and the stringent visitor restriction we have implemented are reducing the spread of COVID-19 in California and protecting our staff and residents. We know we are asking a lot of ourselves, team members, residents, and families. However, these changes in daily routines and restrictions are absolutely necessary for the health and safety of residents and staff.

The CDC and our local public health experts have emphasized that the precautions and mitigation strategies we take over the next few weeks are critical to reducing the risk of the COVID-19 spread. In response to this, we have added some additional safety measures, including the following:

All staff are wearing masks while on shift, and we are working on providing additional masks for residents who request to wear them.
We are working with our local Department of Public Health and Department of Social Services agencies to review staff and resident screening protocols and infectious control protocols.
The staff and resident daily screenings include temperature checks, a review of outside activity, and self-quarantine recommendations.

In the midst of this, we do have team members that, because of pre-existing health conditions or other life circumstances, can not work in the communities right now. We are doing our best to support them and provide alternative options. In addition, our human resource department and community administrators have developed a recruitment and training plan to help fill any vacant positions. We have met many wonderful candidates who want to help ensure that our communities continue to provide compassionate care and services, and we are adding such people to the CiminoCare family each day.

We are committed to open communication with all of you.

Please remember that if you have any questions reach out to the Administrators or email us at info@ciminocare.com.

March 31, 2020

CiminoCare continues to work with our regulators and state agencies to determine the best approach to reducing exposure to our residents and staff, while continuing to provide care, services, and life enrichment. The Department of Social Services has enacted additional requirements regarding COVID-19 emergency planning. All CiminoCare communities are in compliance with these measures. In fact, several have already received their onsite regulatory visit and received high praise from the licensing analysts for their preparedness.

We also recognize that planned and unplanned medical issues arise during this time. We are addressing these situations with medical personnel to ensure that residents continue to receive proper medical care at clinics and hospitals.

We are aware that the State and County Shelter in Place orders require us to impose strict rules on visitation and group activities at least through the end of April. We are being creative to ensure that residents have physical and cognitive engagement every day and that family and friends have a way to communicate with the residents and us. We know how important this is to everyone — it is a top priority for us too. Please call if you have any questions or requests.

March 20, 2020

On 3/19/20, Governor Newsom ordered California residents to shelter-in-place, and San Francisco County issued its own orders through the end of April. We want to clarify several important actions that impact our assisted living and memory care communities.

No Visitors and No Group Gatherings — We continue to have a “no visitor policy” and a “no gathering in communal spaces” policy. Adhering to the social distancing protocols will help limit exposure to our residents and flatten the curve. Our teams are providing room service meals and snacks, ideas for activities in the rooms, one-on-one visits, and opportunities for residents to call and use apps to talk to family members and friends.
Staffing and Services — We are providing full care and services. All of our team members fall under the definitions of essential workers and are continuing to come to work. Many of our team members shared they are grateful to have jobs when so many small businesses are hurting. They are a special group of committed senior care professionals. If this outbreak continues, we do expect staffing shortages. Anyone interested in a position should call us at 916-486-9639 or complete the online application by clicking on Join Our Team at the bottom of our website’s home page.
How to Help — The most impactful thing you can do if you are not an essential worker is to stay at home and follow Governor Newsom’s orders. We are also starting a “Grace Note” campaign. If you, your school, or community group would like to write letters of thanks to our team members or would like to write letters of encouragement to our residents, please contact us, and we will arrange to get the letters to our residents and team members.

March 18, 2020

CiminoCare team members fall under the definition of Essential Workers. All team members that work at the communities meet the criteria of Essential Workers and are expected to report to work as scheduled. In the counties where ‘Shelter in Place’ orders have been instituted we will provide team members with a letter confirming Essential Worker Status and the need to be traveling to and from work. CiminoCare is working diligently to keep all communities fully staffed.

Thank you for your continued dedication to our organization and the residents we all serve.

March 17, 2020

Over the weekend, the Governor announced additional restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19, and Monday, it was announced that 6 Bay Area Counties will adhere to additional requirements. CiminoCare is committed to being a strong partner in the fight to slow the spread and protect our most vulnerable residents.

Today we are restricting visitors to all of our communities, which means that only essential health care professionals and families needing to support end of life care can enter the community. Our staff will continue to provide one on one resident visits and help families set up regular screen time and phone calls.
Non-essential workers are being asked to shelter in place in 6 Bay Area counties. All of our team members are considered essential workers; therefore they will continue to report to work on their scheduled shifts. We are providing our team members with the necessary protection and will be checking temperatures and screening for any health concerns. Thank you to all of our dedicated team members who continue to show up and help us provide the best care and calming reassurance that we are here for our residents and family members, especially during this uncertain time.
We are working with our state agencies and trade association to prepare for any additional restrictions and best practice responses to possible exposure to the virus.

March 13, 2020

We continue to monitor the spread and the risks associated with the coronavirus. Our first priority is to modify our operations to help keep residents safe and healthy. We will also do our best to keep you updated regarding any actions taken to reduce the risks of residents and team members being exposed to the coronavirus.

To date, we do not have any known cases of COVID-19 in our communities.
We continue to follow CDC guidelines on cleaning, personal hygiene and assessments.
At this time we are increasing screening and restricting visitors. We have asked family members and friends not to visit unless it is really essential. We know this is a big request for many, but it is the best way to reduce exposure to our residents. We will help residents communicate with loved ones through online applications and the telephone.

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