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New and more stringent testing requirements for staff, residents and visitors for COVID-19 at nursing homes and long-term care facilities in New Jersey will be announced Monday by state officials, according to reports. sources close to the ordinance.
The warrants, which will require much stricter oversight over the next two weeks, will be unveiled by the governor’s office as the deadly virus has started a resurgence among the state’s most vulnerable population.
Those familiar with the new rules have said the State Department of Health will require improved testing of staff, residents and visitors during that two-week period, starting Monday. Included in the directive:
- Staff should be tested every two days or 48 hours after their last shift.
- Residents who leave the facility frequently (for example for regular dialysis treatments), or for more than 24 hours, are tested upon their return.
- All visitors, except emergency responders, should be tested.
The sources said the mandate will apply to all long-term care facilities that have a CLIA waiver (a clinical lab amendment certification that allows a facility to test someone to assess health, diagnose and determine treatment, a laboratory requirement for the point of care. tests), and who receive BinaxNOW rapid tests from the Department of Health.
The state has already started distributing rapid tests to facilities and plans to send around 300,000 tests in this first phase.
The test is imperfect. Abbott Labs’ BinaxNOW COVID-19 test detects the presence of SARS-CoV-2 protein antigens in people with suspected COVID-19.
Although it has a fast turnaround time and does not need to be sent to a commercial lab – providing results very quickly – the antigen test is not as accurate as the reaction in polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, of molecular tests that detect nucleic acid. virus acid.
But although very accurate, the turnaround time for PCR tests is slow. The delay makes it particularly difficult to isolate staff who are probably the main carriers of the coronavirus in retirement homes. Asymptomatic workers who stay at work waiting for test results can infect others until lab results come back, experts note.
Antigen tests that will be deployed in nursing homes provide more false negatives and positive results. But officials hope that by testing many more people, they can serve as an early warning system,
Officials said the requirement would remain in place for the two week period or until BinaxNOW’s supply runs out. Institutions that maintain their own offering of point-of-service testing are encouraged to use these tests once Binax’s supply is exhausted.
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Nursing home industry officials said they were prepared for the new requirements
“As we wait for the vaccine in a few weeks and are encouraged to make it a priority, we have been working with the Department of Health on this pilot program,” said Andrew Aronson, who heads the Nursing Home Advocates of New Jersey, a coalition of some of the state’s largest operators of retirement homes. “New Jersey nursing homes are working hard to provide the best possible care for our residents throughout the pandemic.
Officials from the 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, the union representing many New Jersey nursing home workers, said rapid antigen testing provided an added layer of protection for residents and nursing home workers.
“At the same time, we know that these types of tests are not a foolproof method of detecting the virus and should be followed by molecular PCR tests to confirm the results,” said Leilani Montes, vice president of the union. “We are concerned about the reports of our members who have been sent home after having been tested falsely positive and forced to use their free time, or not be paid, while they waited for lab results to come. are ultimately found to be negative. “
Montes said nursing home workers who undergo regular testing should not face financial hardship doing what is necessary to keep their residents safe.
Since the virus first struck, nearly 7,000 residents of long-term care facilities in New Jersey have died, according to reports from the Department of Health. More than 15,000 staff have tested positive for COVID-19 and 122 of them have died.
Analysis of state data shows that there have been 181 deaths in nursing homes since September and new infections are on the rise, with 567 in September, 1,106 in October and 2,234 in November.
State Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli last said there were concerns and her department was on the phone with long-term care providers every week, in an effort to investigate how the virus enters collective living spaces.
“Some people would say we’re too conservative,” she says. “And that’s probably true, and we will be.”
Editor of the NJ Advance Media team Riley yates contributed to this report.
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Ted Sherman can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @TedShermanSL.
Brent Johnson can be reached at [email protected].
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