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Home Care Hero: Nascentia Health’s “Virus Hunters”

Nascentia Health’s “Virus Hunters” are #HomeCareHeroes. Read their story. 

NASCENTIA HEALTH "VIRUS HUNTERS"

Nascentia Health’s “Virus Hunters”, a name affectionately given by Syracuse’s Post-Standard, consists of sixteen fearless clinicians who first entered the front lines of the COVID-19 battle when they bravely put on their PPE, loaded up their vehicles with equipment and started looking for COVID-19 cases throughout the Central New York region.

This hard-working team was part of an aggressive collaborative effort with Onondaga County and the Syracuse Community Health Center who were all on a mission to find the virus among some of the most vulnerable populations living in retirement centers, memory care facilities and other senior living residences. The goal was to find people with no symptoms but who could potentially spread the virus among other residents. In just the first two days, they visited three sites and tested approximately 200 patients.

Little did they know that this was just the beginning and the team would be pounding the pavement non-stop for many months to come.

In four months alone, the team completed nearly 9,000 tests in facilities and over 4,900 tests at mobile testing sites set up throughout the area.

Nothing can slow this team time as they are still going strong!

The team consists of the following #HomeCareHeroes: Amy Davis, Andrea Lazarek-LaQuay, Casey Rulison, Elizabeth McFadden, Elizabeth Olmstead, Gail Carmichel, Jacqueline Mullen, JoAnn Racino, Maria Giannino, Melissa Rogers, Nicolas D’Alessandro, Patrick Remenicky, Rebecca Albaugh, Samantha Gallup, Suezette Van Horn and Valerie Dorsey.

We are so grateful to these front-line troops taking on this incredible challenge!

Do you have a #HomeCareHero to recognize? Complete our online form here. We’ll post their story and picture on our website and social media. Please share on your social media accounts, too.