And then there are the clinicians and case managers with whom he worked at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, a respite clinic for people experiencing homelessness. Petrovsky remembers a “compassionate and culturally competent: staff that worked tirelessly not only to address their clients’ health needs, but helped connect them with resources to housing and social services.
They not only listened to their patients’ needs, but heard them,” he says.
Dr. Jim O'Connell, President of Boston Healthcare for the Homeless, said no one expected this kind of asymptomatic spread. Listen to Dr. O'Connell here.
“I think we’re feeling a drumbeat that to really control this virus particularly in vulnerable populations like the homeless folks we’re gonna need to do universal regular testing,” Dr. Jim O’Connell said. Watch the coverage here!
“Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless, called it a “tricky” situation, especially when faced with people who may test positive for the virus, but aren’t showing symptoms.”
“We went from almost no one to a huge influx of COVID-positive people, with the really interesting twist that most of them were asymptomatic, they did not have symptoms,” Jim O’Connell, president of Boston Health Care for the Homeless, said in a recent interview with Boston.com."
“The Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program began testing people with symptoms and traced a cluster back to the Pine Street Inn. After securing testing for everyone at the shelter, they discovered 146 of the 397 people tested were positive by asymptomatic, WBUR reported.”
“It was like a double knockout punch. The number of positives was shocking, but the fact that 100 percent of the positives had no symptoms was equally shocking,” said Dr. Jim O’Connell, President of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which gives medical care at the city’s shelters.”
“My big concern is that we don’t know right now the extent of the virus in any of these larger shelters anywhere in the country,” O’Connell says. “We realize that there’s apt to be a whole lot of asymptomatic spread in these shelters…We should be protecting these people.”
