BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) – Coronavirus diseases have fallen on U.S. nursing homes and other long-term care centers in recent weeks, offering some hope that health officials attribute to the start of vaccinations: holiday waves and better prevention, among other reasons.
More than 153,000 residents in residences and assisted living centers in the country have died from COVID-19, which accounts for 36% of the number of pandemic deaths in the United States, according to the COVID monitoring project. Many of the approximately 2 million people living in these facilities remain away from loved ones due to the risk of infection. The virus still kills thousands every week.
The overall trend for long-term care residents is improving, however, with fewer new cases being reported and fewer outbreaks reporting outbreaks. Along with better figures for the country as a whole, it is cause for optimism even if it is too early to declare victory.
“We definitely believe there is hope and that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” said Marty Wright, who leads a nursing home trade group 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 see remarkable improvements after months in which some nursing homes lost dozens of residents due to the disease and had to keep others isolated for protection. According to an industry group, about 2,000 nursing homes have no viruses, or about 13% nationwide, and many deal with far fewer cases than before.
In West Virginia, where about 30 percent of the state’s approximately 2,080 deaths from COVID-19 occurred in long-term care centers, fewer outbreaks occur and fewer residents need hospitalization, said Wright, chief executive officer of the West Virginia Health Association. Pennsylvania-based Genori HealthCare, which operates more than 325 nursing homes, assisted living facilities or senior communities in 24 states, has seen similar improvements, spokeswoman Lori Mayer said.
The American Health Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, an industry trade organization, said Thursday that data from about 800 nursing homes where initial doses of vaccine were given in late December went offer promising results. Cases among residents fell by 48% in households where vaccines had been produced, compared with a 21% decrease in nearby unvaccinated facilities. Meanwhile, cases among employees fell 33% in vaccinated homes, compared to 18% in unvaccinated facilities.
After reaching a high of almost 73,600 new weekly cases in long-term care centers across the country in mid-December, the figure fell 31% at the end of January, to 50,000 new cases in the week, according to an Associated Press analysis. Still, the most recent weekly count is 18% higher than the seven-day period that ended on Thanksgiving Day, when numbers began to rise.
The weekly count of new deaths remains stubbornly high, with a record 7,042 recorded during the seven-day period ending Jan. 14 and only a slight decline since then. In comparison, during the seven days that ended Thanksgiving Day, 3,181 deaths were recorded. More encouragingly, the COVID Monitoring Project found that only 251 facilities reported new outbreaks recently, compared to 1,410 in early January.
Dr. David Gifford, chief physician of the national association, said the figures show signs of hope, as they indicate that vaccines could slow the spread of COVID-19, a finding not shown in the trials.
“If checked with additional data, this could speed up the reopening of long-term care facilities to visitors, which is vital to the health and well-being of residents,” it said in a statement.
The possibility of visiting him left Mark Badger and his father Billy, 91, who is in a nursing home in Anchorage, Alaska, crying. It was the first face-to-face visit in a year. Mark Badger’s mother had died in the house a year ago.
“This is a time when we really need each other,” Mark Badger said. “He’s been alone.”
Experts warn that only some of the improvements can be related to vaccines.
Studies in Israel show that the first two-dose Pfizer or Modern vaccine takes 12 days to provide significant protection to the patient, said Roni Rosenfeld, a computational epidemiologist who heads Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Machine Learning. Despite all long-term care facilities, residents and workers who have received at least one dose of the vaccine, those doses have not had enough time to work for most people, he said this week.
“The vaccine probably contributed, but very, very little,” Rosenfeld said.
Health officials say other factors are likely to play a more important role, including a decline in the post-holiday increase, an increasing number of people immune because they have had the disease, behavioral changes and protective equipment. more abundant. And they warn that there are still threats lurking, including the most contagious strains of the virus and the reluctance of many nursing home workers to get vaccinated.
At the Arbor Springs Rehabilitation and Health Center in Opelika, Alabama, where 19 patients died of COVID-19 early in the pandemic, none of the approximately 115 patients are infected now, said Mark Traylor, who runs the company facility matrix, Traylor-Porter Healthcare. .
“It simply came to our notice then. We take care of each other, ”resident Susan McEachern said Wednesday as she and a friend, both in masks, sat in a community room that 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 treat COVID-19 was the difference between “looking into an abyss” during those early weeks of the crisis and that visitors were now allowed to return in a limited way.
“We’ll be in great shape once we vaccinate everyone,” Traylor said.
PruittHealth, which operates about 100 nursing homes in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, has 29 COVID-19-free locations and fewer patients testing positive in recent weeks, said CEO Neil Pruitt.
Although more than 70% of eligible residents of PruittHealth nursing homes have been vaccinated, only 27% of their employees have agreed to be vaccinated, Pruitt said. Without a big improvement in that number of employees, he worries that cases may rise again when people start traveling during the spring break.
“Right now, I’m not sure,” he said.
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Carla K. Johnson, medical writer for the Associated Press, Washington; Adrain Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska; data journalist Nicky Forster; and photographer Julie Bennett at Opelika contributed to this report.