photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World File Photo

Pioneer Ridge Retirement Community, 1000 Wakarusa Drive, is pictured in this file photo from March 2017.

Story updated at 4:10 p.m. Thursday

Retirement communities in Lawrence have started taking precautions against the new coronavirus by implementing new policies designed to limit exposure.

Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Health Care Association recommended on Tuesday that nursing facilities admit only essential visitors.

On Thursday afternoon, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health also directed all long-term nursing and skilled-care facilities in the county to only admit essential visitors in order to protect residents.

Certain retirement centers in Lawrence began following the visitor guidelines in advance of the county’s recommendation.

Pioneer Ridge Retirement Community, 1000 Wakarusa Drive, is owned by Topeka-based senior living provider Midwest Health Inc., which announced Thursday that only essential guests would be allowed to enter its 65 senior living communities across the Midwest.

According to a news release from Midwest Health Inc., these policies went into place on Wednesday. An essential guest is defined as someone providing active health care services to a resident, according to the release.

Midwest Health Inc. said it implemented these policies following the recommendation of the American Health Care Association and CDC.

According to the release, the Midwest Health senior living communities are also enhancing protocols by screening staff members and essential visitors prior to entry, posting hand-washing and sanitizing policies through their communities and implementing additional infection control protocols.

Presbyterian Manor, 1429 Kasold Drive, is likewise allowing only essential visitors and has also canceled all incoming and outgoing activities sponsored by the home, said Jeanne Gerstenkorn, the senior vice president of health and wellness for Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America. The facility will still host in-house programming but will not sponsor events that take place outside the facility or allow outside hosts to come and lead events.

Other area retirement facilities are taking precautions against the virus, though some not to the level of restricting nonessential visitors.

The CDC has determined that older adults and people who have serious chronic medical conditions like heart and lung disease are at higher risk of becoming dangerously sick from the virus.

Five long-term care facilities in Washington State have been hit by the virus, and 18 residents from a single facility in Kirkland, Wash., have died, according to a Tuesday article from The New York Times.

In other news, the Douglas County Senior Resource Center will be canceling its programs and activities until April 1, according to executive director Megan Poindexter.