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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – Coronavirus cases have plummeted in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities across the United States in recent weeks, offering a silver lining that health officials attribute to the start of vaccinations , post-peak vacation relief and better prevention, among other reasons.
According to the COVID Tracking Project, more than 153,000 residents of nursing homes and assisted living centers nationwide have died from COVID-19, accounting for 36% of the death toll from the U.S. pandemic. Many of the estimated 2 million people who live in such facilities remain cut off from their loved ones due to the risk of infection. The virus still kills thousands of them every week.
The general trend for residents of long-term care facilities is improving, however, with fewer new cases recorded and fewer facilities reporting outbreaks. Coupled with better numbers for the country as a whole, this is cause for optimism even though it is too early to declare victory.
“We really believe there is hope and there is light at the end of the tunnel,” said Marty Wright, who runs a professional group of retirement homes in West Virginia.
Nursing homes have been a priority since vaccinations began in mid-December, and the federal government says 1.5 million long-term care residents have already received at least one initial dose.
Researchers and industry leaders say they are seeing marked improvements after months in which some nursing homes lost dozens of residents to illness and had to keep others in semi-isolation to protect himself. Some 2,000 nursing homes are now virus-free, or about 13% nationally, according to an industry group, and many are treating far fewer cases than before.
In West Virginia, where about 30% of the state’s roughly 2,080 COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term care homes, fewer outbreaks are occurring and fewer residents require hospitalization, Wright said , CEO of the West Virginia Health Care Association. Pennsylvania-based Genesis HealthCare, which operates more than 325 nursing homes, assisted living centers or seniors’ communities in 24 states, has seen similar improvements, spokeswoman Lori Mayer said.
The American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, an industry trade organization, said on Thursday that data from about 800 nursing homes where initial doses of the vaccine had been administered as of the end of December offered promising results. Cases among residents fell 48% in homes where vaccinations had taken place, compared to a drop of 21% in nearby unvaccinated facilities. At the same time, cases among employees fell by 33% in immunized homes, compared to 18% in unvaccinated facilities.
After peaking at nearly 73,600 new cases per week in long-term care facilities nationwide in mid-December, the number was down 31% by the end of January, to about 50 000 new cases per week, according to an analysis by Associated Press. Still, the most recent weekly tally is 18% higher than the seven-day period that ended on Thanksgiving Day, when the numbers started to climb.
The weekly number of new deaths remains stubbornly high, with a record high of 7,042 recorded in the seven-day period that ended on January 14 and only a slight decline since. By comparison, for the seven days that ended on Thanksgiving Day, 3,181 deaths were recorded. More encouragingly, the COVID Tracking Project found that only 251 facilities reported new outbreaks recently, up from 1,410 at the start of January.
Dr David Gifford, chief medical officer of the national association, said the numbers show signs of hope as they indicate vaccines could reduce the spread of COVID-19, a finding not shown in trials.
“If this is verified with additional data, it could speed up the reopening of long-term care facilities to visitors, which is vital for the health and well-being of residents,” he said in a statement. .
The opportunity to visit left Mark Badger and his father Billy, 91, who lives in a retirement home in Anchorage, Alaska, in tears. It was the first in-person visit in a year. Mark Badger’s mother had passed away at home a year ago.
“It’s a time when he really needs us,” said Mark Badger. “He was alone.”
Experts warn that only part of the improvement may be related to vaccines.
Studies in Israel show that it takes a patient about 12 days for the first of the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to provide significant protection, said Roni Rosenfeld, a computer epidemiologist who heads the machine learning department at the ‘Carnegie Mellon University. Despite all residents and workers in long-term care facilities who have received at least one dose of the vaccine, those doses haven’t had enough time to work for most people, he said this week.
“The vaccine probably helped, but very, very little,” Rosenfeld said.
Health officials say other factors are probably playing a bigger role, including a reflux of the post-vacation flare, an ever-increasing number of people being immune because they have had the disease, behavioral changes and more protective equipment. And they warn that there are still lurking threats, including more contagious strains of the virus and a reluctance by many nursing home workers to get vaccinated.
At the Arbor Springs Health and Rehabilitation Center in Opelika, Alabama, where 19 patients died from COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic, none of the approximately 115 patients are currently infected, said Mark Traylor, who directs the establishment’s parent company, Traylor-Porter Healthcare. .
“We take care of each other here. We take care of each other, ”resident Susan McEachern said Wednesday as she and a friend – both wearing masks – sat in a common room that had recently reopened because many residents had been vaccinated.
Traylor said a better understanding of how to prevent the spread of the virus and how to deal with COVID-19 was the difference between “looking into an abyss” during the first weeks of the crisis and visitors now being allowed to come back on a limited basis.
“We’ll be in great shape once everyone gets vaccinated,” Traylor said.
PruittHealth, which operates approximately 100 nursing homes in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, has 29 COVID-19-free sites and fewer patients have tested positive in recent weeks, CEO Neil Pruitt said.
Although more than 70% of eligible residents of PruittHealth’s nursing homes have been vaccinated, only 27% of its employees have agreed to be vaccinated, Pruitt said. Without a big improvement in that employee figure, he fears cases will pick up once people start traveling during spring break.
“At the moment, I’m not confident,” he says.
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Carla K. Johnson, Associated Press medical editor in Washington state; Adrain Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska; data reporter Nicky Forster; and Opelika photographer Julie Bennett contributed to this report.
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