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Oklahoma nursing home officials are pushing for something akin to a halfway house for COVID-19-infected nursing home patients returning from hospitals.

As COVID-19 spreads and growing numbers of infected nursing home residents are taken to hospitals for life-saving treatment, there is a new and growing concern among nursing home officials. Hospitals are sending the patients back to the nursing homes after the critical danger to their health has been treated but while they still may be contagious.

That poses a danger to other nursing home patients and staff and that's a problem, says Steve Buck, executive director of Care Providers Oklahoma, a trade organization for Oklahoma's nursing home industry.

"There needs to be a robust discussion about establishing a stand alone facility or facilities that care for those people who are past critical stage, but still contagious, as opposed to bringing somebody who has had an infection back into an otherwise healthy population," Buck said.