{"id":265692,"date":"2021-06-02T23:26:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T20:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/despite-covid-19-vaccines-nursing-homes-struggle-with-outbreaks\/"},"modified":"2021-06-02T23:26:09","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T20:26:09","slug":"despite-covid-19-vaccines-nursing-homes-struggle-with-outbreaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/despite-covid-19-vaccines-nursing-homes-struggle-with-outbreaks\/","title":{"rendered":"#Despite COVID-19 vaccines, nursing homes struggle with outbreaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Despite COVID-19 vaccines, nursing homes struggle with outbreaks<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

Jeannie Wells had hoped that regular visits would resume at her elderly mother\u2019s New York nursing home once all the residents were fully vaccinated against\u00a0COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Around Easter, her wish finally came true, and she was able to hold the 93-year-old\u2019s hand more than a year after bringing her mother to the facility for rehabilitation for a fractured hip and knee.<\/p>\n

But that reunion was short-lived. Visits were quickly stopped for about six weeks after an employee tested positive for COVID, and Wells said visits are still far from normal even when there haven\u2019t been outbreaks.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 vaccines have allowed nursing homes in the U.S. to make dramatic progress since the dark days of the pandemic, but senior care facilities are still experiencing scattered outbreaks that are largely blamed on unvaccinated staff members. The outbreaks and ensuing shutdowns have jolted family members who were just starting to enjoy in-person visits with loved ones for the first time in a year.<\/p>\n

While the outbreaks inside nursing homes now are much smaller, less frequent and less severe than during the height of the pandemic, there continue to be hundreds of deaths each week attributed to the coronavirus. According to federal data, 472 nursing home deaths were related to COVID-19 in the first two weeks of May, down from 10,675 in the first two weeks of January.<\/p>\n

\"Mary
Mary Lou Galushko gives Jeanne Peters, 95, a rehab patient at The Reservoir, a nursing facility, the first COVID-19 vaccination at the nursing home Friday, Dec. 18, 2020, in West Hartford, Conn. <\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere is this notion among some that vaccines were administered in long-term care, so we\u2019re done, and that would be a perilous mistake,\u201d said Dr. David Gifford, chief medical officer for the American Health Care Association, a national nursing home trade association, in a recent statement. \u201cNursing homes and assisted living communities have a constant flow of new residents, whether coming from the hospital or the community, and many of them haven\u2019t been vaccinated yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, the CDC has\u00a0warned\u00a0<\/a>that low rates of vaccination among health care workers in skilled nursing facilities raises risks of outbreaks.<\/p>\n

A March outbreak involving a variant at a Kentucky nursing home, where most residents had been vaccinated for COVID-19, was traced to an infected, unvaccinated worker, according to a\u00a0CDC report.\u00a0<\/a>Among the 46 cases identified, 26 residents and 20 workers became infected, including 18 residents and four workers who were fully vaccinated 14 days before the outbreak.<\/p>\n

Three of the nursing home\u2019s residents who contracted COVID-19 died, including two who were not vaccinated. So-called \u201cbreakthrough\u201d infections among vaccinated individuals were also identified in nursing homes in Chicago, according to\u00a0another recent CDC report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Connecticut, Gov, Ned Lamont has likened the challenge of keeping the virus out of nursing homes to patching up \u201cleaky boats.\u201d The state Department of Public Health launched Operation Matchmaker to match nursing homes with certain pharmacies to ensure new residents and staff get shots. Hospitals are also working to vaccinate patients before they\u2019re released to a nursing facility.<\/p>\n

\"Jack
Jack Campise talks with his mother, Beverly Kearns, through her apartment window at the Kimberly Hall North nursing home, Thursday, May 14, 2020 in Windsor, Conn.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Given staffing shortages around the country, there\u2019s been a hesitance among long-term care providers to mandate vaccinations for their workers, said Dr. Vivian Leung, director of the state\u2019s Department of Health\u2019s Healthcare Associated Infections Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working with the long-term care industry to really increase the pressure on getting those staff vaccinated,\u201d Leung said.<\/p>\n

Tim Brown, director of marketing and communications at Athena Health Care Systems, which operates 48 facilities in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, recently estimated about 50% to 60% of staff have been vaccinated so far, with as many as 80% in some buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout our network, we are seeing onesies and twosies, mostly with employees, though, that have not been vaccinated. That\u2019s really where we\u2019re seeing them,\u201d Brown said of he infections. If a staff member tests positive, he said, buildings are put under quarantine and visits are put on hold while another round of staff testing is conducted. Unvaccinated staff are being tested regularly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are no other cases, or if the employee did not work on a specific wing, then we allow visitation for that wing or for for the wings that are not affected by the positive employee,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mairead Painter, Connecticut\u2019s long-term care ombudsman, said recent guidance from the state has clarified how facilities should handle these scattered outbreaks in order to minimize the impact they can have on the rest of residents and their families. She said that\u2019s led to fewer complaints fielded by her office.<\/p>\n

\"Nursing
Nursing home residents wait in line to receive a COVID-19 vaccine at Harlem Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, a nursing home facility, on Friday, Jan. 15, 2021 in Harlem neighborhood of New York.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Debra Ellis, whose 88-year-old wife Jackie lives in a Meriden, Conn. nursing home, said the rules still differ by facility. Until recently, she had been frustrated by the strict visitation limits, including sudden multi-day shutdowns when staff members have tested positive. Both she and her wife are vaccinated.<\/p>\n

By mid-May, things finally eased up and she\u2019s been allowed to go inside her wife\u2019s room. Yet Ellis hears from relatives of residents at other nursing homes that that\u2019s not the case at other facilities in Connecticut.<\/p>\n

Ellis is part of a group that\u2019s pushing for both state and federal legislation allowing nursing home residents to have essential caregivers. She said that could have helped her wife, who suffers from heart problems and relied on Ellis before the pandemic for emotional support and exercises to keep her legs strong.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe could get up and walk a very small distance around the room to move to the bed to a chair or whatever,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s not longer able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a similar experience for Wells, who said the nursing home where her mother lives still has no communal dining, group activities or hairdressing services. Wells, who lives in Rochester, said it was only last week that she was offered the opportunity to meet with her mother outside and without masks. But after spending so much time isolated during the pandemic, Wells said her mother no longer knows who she is, other than someone who cares about her.<\/p>\n

She said it pains her to see her mother, who used to get her hair done weekly, looking unkept, with bangs hanging in her eyes and hair down to her shoulders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis nursing home never allowed us into their rooms. We have to stay in an ugly dining room that\u2019s been strip<\/a>ped and all the furniture stacked in the corner and in four little pods of tables pushed together and staff staring at you the whole time,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cNone of that has changed because they\u2019re allowing nursing homes to do their own thing.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more News<\/a> articles, you can visit our News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Despite COVID-19 vaccines, nursing homes struggle with outbreaks” Jeannie Wells had hoped that regular visits would resume at her elderly mother\u2019s New York nursing home once all the residents were fully vaccinated against\u00a0COVID-19. Around Easter, her wish finally came true, and she was able to hold the 93-year-old\u2019s hand more than a year after bringing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":265693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/virus-outbreak-nursing-homes-2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[108053,1545,82862,42160,74195,71041],"class_list":["post-265692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-6-2-21","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-vaccine","tag-nursing-homes","tag-vaccination","tag-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}