FREWSBURG — A recent cluster of COVID-19 cases at an assisted living facility in Frewsburg is being addressed, its owner told The Post-Journal.

The Chautauqua County Health Department reported 35 additional cases in the hamlet’s zip code on Monday from the holiday weekend. Of the county’s 399 active cases, 49 are located in Frewsburg.

The uptick is linked to a cluster of cases at The Magnolia, an assisted living facility for “active seniors” owned by the Tanglewood Group since 2014 when it was purchased from the Sischo family, which operated it as the Frewsburg Rest Home for four decades.

Nick Ferreri, the group’s owner and president, said many of the residents in the facility have tested positive and have “very minor COVID symptoms.” Five residents that have tested negative have been isolated on the facility’s top floor.

“This thing happened and it started with an employee in my kitchen whose mother is a nurse,” he said. “It had to have come from the hospital. I don’t know that for sure but I have to make that assumption. That’s all it takes.”

He said the “negative is, (the facility) is a tight space.”

“The positive is we are able to isolate people,” he continued.

Ferreri said residents are tested regularly. The employee tested positive outside of work, which prompted additional testing to take place.

“That week, we tested our residents and of course nobody had it and then the next week and then all of a sudden, people have it,” he said. “Now we’re testing more and all of a sudden the following week, even more people have it. We isolate those who test negative as soon as possible and once we do we know that the virus isn’t transferable.”

“That’s why I think we’re the best at it, because we can control it,” he added. “We do everything and then after 14 days it’s over with.”

Ferreri said “the biggest problem is that the hospitals are getting full and it’s not becuase they are COVID sick, it’s because it’s COVID and it’s passed and after the 14 days, they’re not contagious and they still test positive.”

“We work with the hospitals and we’ll take them back,” he said, but decried a state mandate that prevents residents from being discharged from the hospital after the 14-day period.

“When you have a senior, as they get older, if they lay in bed, one day in the hospital akes three days to get back to where they were when they went in,” Ferreri said, crediting his facility for keeping residents busy with “hundreds of activities a month.”

“Otherwise, when they’re sitting there, they’re just receding and then they have to go to physical therapy or leave our facility and go to skilled nursing,” he said. “That’s what they need is socialization.”

Ferreri said “it’s really pathetic that after 14 days, we can’t get our people out of the hospitals to bring them back.”

“We isolate them for another 14 days and they wouldn’t be back unless they didn’t have symptoms. They don’t have the virus anymore and yet they are still in the hospital.”

The county announced two more fatalities on Monday from the holiday weekend. The individuals, according to a breakdown of the deaths by age range, appeared to be in their 70s. Ferreri said one resident that had been hospitalized with the virus did pass away of a heart attack, but that he had been considered “COVID recovered.”

“We get the death certificates and we check it,” he said. “In one case we saw that there was nothing in their lungs and everything else was fine in the individual, who was relatively close to going to skilled nursing anyways from our facility,” he said. “But, I can’t answer that in a positive way. The ones we checked on there were other reasons why they passed away. How they were characterized, I can’t tell you because it’s a moving target.”

Ferreri did emphasize that the death ratio for COVID-19 is “very small.” According to state data, 37,000 people have died of the coronavirus in New York state.

“When you have seniors, they have illnesses and what I worry the most about is that everybody is reporting that the flu death rate is at the lowest,” he said. “That’s because anybody whose sick has COVID. What I’m worried about, and I’ve talked to our doctors, is that we have to look at everything. If they need that theraflu stuff, we can’t undermedicate that because we think and assume that it’s COVID.”

He added, “I’m more worried about the flu and pneumonia, of all things, I’m more nervous about that this season because it’s not going to be identified. I’ve got all my staff ready for that and we’ve gone through all the precautions. … This is the season and that’s what I’m worried about.

Of the deaths that we’ll have, it’ll be equal to or less with COVID than it’s been with pneumonia and the flu.”

Ferreri credited his staff across the group’s facilities for their hard work in assisting residents during this time.

“God bless my employees,” he said. “These are the bravest individuals, they’re the strongest and they walk into battle every day and they’re not intimated. They do the thing and if they get the virus, as soon as they’re better, they want to come back. They’ve done amazing work.”