Vulnerable people living in assisted living centers are in a high-risk situation, as are those in residences. But the COVID-19 vaccine deployment plan does not give priority to this group of people in the first phase of inoculations nationwide. These older individuals who are physically independent but often in need of medical care live in the same community facilities that put the residents of the residences at risk of contracting the virus.
According to ABC News, assisted living facilities (or ALFs) are not federally regulated, so no data is available on how COVID-19 has affected this group of people.
“The risk of community spread and transmission in an assisted living facility is as high as in a nursing home,” said Zach Shamberg, president of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association. In Pennsylvania, assisted living residents were not among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, causing a wait of several months before it was their turn. However, last week Gov. Tom Wolf announced an expansion of vaccine distribution in that state that would include those living in Phase 1A assisted residents.
Shamberg told ABC News that with the current pace of drug administration in Pennsylvania, many assisted living residents may not receive their second shot until April or May, or even later.
“We are talking about the possibility of vaccinating our most vulnerable residents during the summer months,” he said. Experts say residents living with care have fallen through the cracks because public health officials thought there was only enough vaccine for those in the residences.
Even in states that have included assisted residents in their vaccine distribution plan, there have been delays and snafus.
These problems have frustrated many facility managers. Robert Loomis, the manager of A Country Place, an assisted living in the Tampa Bay area, said he was forced to call Walgreens, one of two pharmacies in charge of delivering vaccines to nursing homes in all over the country, to ask the pharmacy to step up The pace.
“My frustration was with the way the decisions were made with the shots,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. ” Weeks passed and we saw a massive distribution to the public, but not to us. ”
CVS and Walgreen pharmacies administer the drugs at long-term care facilities through the federal Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care program.
Veronica Catoe, director general of the Florida Association for Assisted Living, told the Times that there is “frustration and confusion over the initial implementation of ALF vaccinations and why these communities have been prioritized behind nursing homes. ‘grandparents and many people in general aged 65 and over populations’.
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