These include improved social distancing, better use of protective equipment, and above all else -- regular COVID-19 testing for every patient and worker at a nursing home, regardless of whether they are showing symptoms of infection. These workers, as well as short-term patients, can carry the coronavirus into the nursing home or spread it out into the surrounding community during an outbreak at the facility, Boucher and Taylor said. Nursing homes already have started socially isolating patients, by moving them to single rooms, Fulmer and Robinson-Lane said.