Inside a shelter for homeless people recovering from coronavirus

By adamg on Tue, 04/28/2020 - 9:14am

DigBoton takes us inside the East Newton Pavillion, a closed Boston Medical Center building that was re-opened to provide a place for homeless people to stay as they recover from Covid-19.

The building had been slated to be turned into the new inpatient facility for the Shattuck Hospital before the current crisis.

Neighborhoods:

South End

Free tagging:

Homelessness

Covid-19

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Comments

The plight of the homeless

By anon on Tue, 04/28/2020 - 10:37am.

With libraries and fast food establishments closed many of the homeless are finding refuge on MBTA buses and trains during the daytime. What shelters are open during the daytime for the homeless to find refuge during the cold and rainy days we are experiencing?

Quite a few, actually

By jillian on Wed, 04/29/2020 - 7:48am.

Many shelters in Boston that are typically open just overnight have extended hours to 24/7.

Many day shelters that typically support people who are homeless are still open (with some changes in how they operate), as well, including the Engagement Center and Boston Living Center.

I think that Boston and a few other cities (Cambridge, Quincy, Worcester) are doing a decent job of supporting people who are homeless during this time - and by extension better helping to keep their entire community well. I hope this lasts beyond the COVID crisis.

Great article

By JohnAKeith on Tue, 04/28/2020 - 12:04pm.

Very interesting and informative article.

One part stuck out.

Patients are required to stay at the facility until they are cleared from their infection, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Some may need to show that they have no symptoms for seven days or 72 hours in order to be cleared for release.

They aren't suggesting that they force people to stay there if they want to leave, are they?

Yes -- If you are a Certified Positive

By Nowy Liberté on Tue, 04/28/2020 - 2:12pm.

John -- if you have symptoms consistent with the COVID-19 disease at the time that you are tested [most common reason to be tested] and are found positive for the SARS-COV-2 virus -- you are required to be isolated until after the symptoms abate and then be tested to prove that you are not still infected. You are fully capable of "shedding the virus" for several weeks after you are not showing any symptoms.

Indeed if you are tested -- even if you have no symptoms at the time -- yet -- then you are required [not just suggested] to be isolated for the duration of your illness and then some -- as you are fully capable of "shedding the virus" even for some time [perhaps 2 weeks] after your symptoms abate. Indeed you may be infected and never show symptoms [apparently some 50% or even more fall into this category] -- but you can still be a spreader or virus shedder.

If you have a place of residence where you can self-isolate from the general public and even your family -- then you can return to your residence. Obviously, if you don't have such a residence -- you have to be "isolated" in a place of the Commonwealth's choosing to protect the rest of the public from you as a carrier.

The protocol that you are cured of COVID-19 is that you be tested twice [for the virus not for antibodies] separated by up to 48 hours [apparently the minimum incubation time for the disease from instant of contact with the virus]. As a result -- to be "Released" from isolation -- you have to show that you are "virus free" for some period of time which can be interpreted as 2 tests for the virus in 48 hours or possibly more.

So -- yes -- in the interest of Public Health an infected Homeless Person will be confined [against their will if necessary] until it is safe to allow them to leave and rejoin the general population. -- Google "Typhoid Mary."

Finally -- as the COVID-19 is still a novel Coronavirus disease things -- all the above is a work in progress as we continue to learn about the details of the disease and the various versions of the SARS-COV-2 virus' vagaries.

The majority of the patients

By AsianGirl on Tue, 04/28/2020 - 2:24pm.

The majority of the patients there are homeless... I would assume that they wouldn't be so eager to leave.

They may have agreed to this

By SwirlyGrrl on Tue, 04/28/2020 - 3:16pm.

These guidelines may have been part of a "consent to treatment" offered when people moved in.It doesn't sound like anyone there is sufficiently ill as to not be able to give such consent. I'd be more concerned if they forced people out.