Covid-19 cases drop in nursing homes, offering a sign of hope for vaccines

The numbers may signal the emergence of a viral storm in long-term care that has claimed more than 150,000 lives, according to a Wall Street Journal tally of state and federal data. Seniors care-related deaths consistently account for at least a third of all Covid-19-related deaths in the United States, which recently reached 430,000 people.

“What we’re seeing are a lot of early and positive signs,” said David Grabowski, professor at Harvard Medical School. “They are all encouraging and collectively suggest that the vaccine is potentially starting to work.”

The last week of CMS data, taken from nursing home surveys, is often revised, but Dr Grabowski said any revision seemed unlikely to erase the downward trend in the number of new cases.

Residents and nursing home staff, who have been prioritized for access to vaccines, began receiving their first vaccines as early as the second week of December. The deployment has widened in recent weeks.

The two Covid-19 vaccines authorized in the United States require two injections, spaced three or four weeks apart. They are believed to provide some protection after a single dose.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 3.1 million vaccines have been administered in long-term care facilities, including more than 2.7 million initial doses and approximately 366,000 second doses.

The CDC said there are about three million beds in long-term care facilities in the United States, a category that includes assisted living facilities as well as nursing homes, although many of those that do get vaccinated are staff members. Nursing homes reported generally high participation rates among residents, but much lower rates among workers.

It is too early to determine the impact of vaccinations in long-term care facilities, but the recent drop in cases holds promise and may reflect both vaccines and other efforts to curb the spread of the virus, said Friday a spokesperson for the CDC. Almost all of the nursing homes that signed up for the federal immunization program have completed their first immunization clinic, which means people received their first vaccine there, she said.

Some nursing home reports to the federal database may have been interrupted or incomplete during the year-end vacation, and outbreaks have eased before to increase again as cases in the general community have increased. The recent declines in new cases continued for two weeks of reporting without overlap with the holidays.

Researchers and nursing home leaders said several factors were contributing to the decrease in Covid-19 cases, including the mitigation of the viral outbreak in some communities. Nursing home outbreaks tend to run closely parallel with the spread of the virus outside of facilities.

“We’ve fallen dramatically” in the cases of Covid-19, said Nathan Schema, vice president of operations for the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, which is part of Sanford Health, a nonprofit with 141 homes pensions in 22 states. “All indications suggest that vaccination has been a game changer,” he said.

Almost all of Good Samaritan’s nursing homes have received the first doses of the vaccine, and about a quarter have received second doses, Schema said, with nearly all residents and about 50 to 60% of staff choosing to stay. get vaccinated.

In recent days, the number of active Covid-19 cases among residents and staff at the Good Samaritan has hovered around 150, its lowest since September. As of mid-December, the total was often around 900 or more cases.

“The rates are definitely going down and I’m sure the vaccine is starting to have an impact,” said Richard Feifer, Chief Medical Officer of Genesis Healthcare Inc.,

the largest retirement home company in the United States. It is impossible to say how much of the decline in Genesis facilities is due to vaccination compared to the decline expected after a holiday spree in December, he said.

Connecticut officials also say they believe the vaccinations, which began there Dec. 18, are starting to help. State figures – which are more up-to-date than the federal tally – show declines over the past three weeks of data, including 150 newly diagnosed resident cases for the week ending Jan. 26. This compares to weekly totals which hovered around 450 in December.

Importantly, the number of cases in nursing homes appears to be declining faster than that in the wider community, said Deidre Gifford, acting commissioner in the Connecticut Department of Public Health. She said vaccinations, coupled with infection prevention efforts, appear to reduce cases.

“We are very upbeat and optimistic that we are starting to see the fruits of all of these things,” said Dr Gifford.

The latest US data still shows an uneven landscape, and some states and public health authorities say it’s still too early to say vaccines are reversing the trend.

One state that was at the start of nursing home immunizations, West Virginia, has seen a sharp drop in Covid-19 cases among nursing home residents in the past week of federal data, and has also recently seen a decline in the number of establishments with outbreaks. said Marty Wright, executive director of the West Virginia Health Care Association, which represents local long-term care homes.

But the effect of vaccines remains an open question. The state epidemiologist is currently collecting data, including information that will help show the percentage of residents and workers who have received vaccines, said public health official Ayne Amjad. West Virginia began delivering snapshots to nursing homes in mid-December, ahead of the large nationwide rollout.

“We have had our long-term care facilities vaccinated quickly and we wonder to what extent this plays a role,” said Dr Amjad.

—Joseph De Avila contributed to this article.

Write to Anna Wilde Mathews at [email protected], Jon Kamp at [email protected] and Tom McGinty at [email protected]