The Nursing Home Workers Who May Spread the Coronavirus

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — In late May, Jean-Junior Vertu and Marie Julceus, two employees at a long-term care facility near West Palm Beach, Fla., took a routine test for the coronavirus and then went about their workday. They felt fine. Mr. Vertu, a dietary aide, pureed food for the residents while listening to Haitian dance music. Ms. Julceus, a nurse, helped them eat.

When their seven-hour shift ended, they went straight to their second seven-hour shifts, at different nursing homes.

Little did they know that, as they traveled several times that week from one facility to another, they had been taking the virus with them.

“When I got the message that said I was Covid positive, I got scared,” said Ms. Julceus, 50, who learned she had the virus at about the same time that Mr. Vertu did. “I took my temperature, I laid down and said, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’”