HANOVER — Another Hanover Terrace resident has died of COVID-19.
In an email Monday, Martha Ilsley, the nursing home’s temporary administrator, said that of the 68 current residents, 63 have tested positive for COVID-19, and so far, 21 of those have recovered and five have died. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of these families and their friends,” Ilsley said in an email Monday afternoon.
Hanover Terrace has also had 27 of its 95 staff test positive, and 12 have recovered and returned to work, Ilsley said.
In addition, the state Department of Health and Human Services has sent four registered nurses to assist with staffing. They arrived in Hanover on Monday and will start work Tuesday, providing relief for staff who haven’t been able to take time off.
HANOVER — Richmond Middle School has reported a new case of COVID-19, Jay Badams, superintendent of schools for Hanover and Norwich, reported Monday in a letter to the school community.
The supervisory union is working with the state Department of Health and Human Services and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center to trace the contacts of the person who tested positive and to arrange for further testing, Badams said. People who were in close contact with the individual who tested positive “will be directed to get tested and keep themselves or their child quarantined until 10 days following their last possible exposure.”
A student at Thetford Academy has also been diagnosed with COVID-19, but the case is sufficiently isolated that there is no need to transition from in-person to remote learning or for contact tracing or further testing, school officials said Monday.
The House of Representatives is tentatively planning to hold a drive-in style meeting in January at the University of New Hampshire in the wake of its speaker dying of COVID-19.
Dick Hinch, who was sworn in Dec. 2 as leader of the state’s newly Republican-led, 400-member House, died Wednesday. He was 71 and had been starting his seventh, two-year term in the House.
His death prompted Democrats to call for the Jan. 6 meeting to be held virtually. Lawmakers are expected to elect a new speaker, adopt rules and introduce bills.
“The Democratic Party wants to go virtual and we are having trouble with that. We are just looking at safety and getting everyone together,” Acting Speaker Sherman Packard told The Associated Press.
The meeting would be held in one of the UNH parking lots, Packard said. They are trying to work out additional details, including how lawmakers would be vote. “This is a concept to see if we can do it,” Packard said.
Over the weekend, another high-ranking Republican lawmaker in the House said she contracted COVID-19. Kimberly Rice, of Hudson, said on Facebook that she is “feeling horrible” and struggling to breathe, but vowed to beat the virus. “This has been one of the toughest weeks I think I’ve ever had,” she wrote in a post on Saturday.
Rice was recently appointed to one of the leading positions in the House.
More than a quarter of House members, most of them Democrats, skipped the swearing-in ceremony after learning the day before that several Republican lawmakers had tested positive for the virus after attending a Nov. 20 indoor meeting.