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An increase in COVID-19 cases in Marin nursing homes has prompted the county’s top public health official to issue a new order regarding vaccinations and visitors.
As of Thursday, 24 residents and staff from four Marin retirement homes had tested positive for the coronavirus since the start of last week.
“As the delta variant spreads, we are seeing more and more cases in institutions,” said Dr Matt Willis, public health officer for Marin. “The majority of cases in county facilities involve unvaccinated staff. The current cluster of cases at the Redwoods is the largest, with 12 to date. Most are on the staff.
Willis said he had issued an order requiring visitors to Marin County nursing homes to be vaccinated. In addition, exposed staff and residents must self-quarantine for 14 days, regardless of their immunization status. Any center with an outbreak should test staff twice a week.
The new local ordinance comes amid an increase in cases across the country and a new state ordinance issued this week requiring staff at hospitals and long-term care facilities in California to be vaccinated by the 23rd. August.
The ordinance stated that “recent outbreaks in health care facilities have often been attributed to unvaccinated staff members, demonstrating the risk of unvaccinated people in these facilities.”
The state also requires visitors to hospitals, skilled nursing homes and intermediate care centers to be vaccinated or have tested negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of interior visits. This ordinance comes into effect on August 11.
After dramatic drops in infections in recent months, the number of coronavirus cases among residents and nursing home staff across the country tripled from July 4 to 25, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A total of 9,371 confirmed outbreaks of COVID-19 and 113,196 cases related to the outbreaks were reported from January 1 to July 27, according to the State Department of Public Health. The two most common settings were residential care centers, which accounted for 22.5% of them, and skilled nursing sites, which accounted for almost 10%.
The Redwoods, the site of the current largest epidemic in Marin, is a retirement community in Mill Valley that includes independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing apartments. About 350 to 400 people live there.
“I hate to panic everyone, but yeah, we had some bright spots,” said Redwoods administrator Catherine Scott.
Scott said none of the infected residents live in the skilled nursing section; these residents in their forties are more medically fragile than the other residents.
“Almost all of our residents have been vaccinated so the symptoms are very mild,” Scott said.
Willis said that across the county, about 95% of nursing home residents are vaccinated and none of the residents or staff who tested positive recently have died or required hospitalization.
“We’re starting to see a new pattern for outbreaks in facilities,” Willis said. “With more residents vaccinated, the ratio of infections at the facility has shifted to more staff than residents.”
Willis said that at the start of the pandemic, one in five coronavirus deaths in Marin had occurred among residents of nursing homes.
Scott said that before the recent outbreak, the Redwoods tested staff and residents once a week for COVID-19. This is how the complex first became aware of the epidemic at the end of last week. The person who tested positive had no symptoms.
“Some people have been asymptomatic; some are vaccinated, ”Scott said. “This is what prompts us to really increase our screening as we are seeing positive COVID cases among vaccinated and asymptomatic people.”
On Monday, Marin County joined six other Bay Area counties and the city of Berkeley in requiring the wearing of face coverings in indoor public places.
Public health officials decided to act after a study by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on July 30 showed that the delta variant appears to spread as easily among the vaccinated as the unvaccinated – although people who are vaccinated rarely get seriously ill.
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