Kirkland Covid vaccine: the first epicenter of the coronavirus in the United States receives the vaccine, but the threat of the deadly virus is hidden

It was the date he discovered “the whole cascade of symptoms” of a virus that the nursing home learned he had invaded just four days earlier.

It was also the day he had to call by phone.

One at 3 in the morning can’t get away from the mind. Remember the conversation with the woman at the other end of the line.

“I realized this was early in the morning, and it’s very hard to say I’m sorry your mom died,” Earnest said. “I cried with her.”

The two, who had never met, shared a heartbreaking moment. Ten months later, sometimes they still talk, Earnest said.

Earnest, a registered nurse, volunteered to help Kirkland’s nursing home from her position as a nursing director at another Life Care Center in the state.

They needed all the help they could get. Nearly 70% of staff had tested positive for coronavirus in March.

He had no idea that the discreet building on a tree-lined street in a quiet residential neighborhood of Kirkland would become the first American epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

“It was like chasing a ghost,” he told CNN in March. “You’re on a battlefield where supplies are limited. Help is slow to reach you and there are a lot of casualties. And you can’t see the enemy.”

Ten months from the initial outbreak, she and other front-line health workers finally get the best weapon available to fight the virus: the vaccine.

Alice Cortez, nursing manager at the Life Care Center in Kirkland, was the first to receive the vaccine here.

“This is an exciting day for everyone, especially for my team,” he said as his voice cracked with emotion.

“What I’m feeling right now is a new life, a new beginning, but a better life.”

Coronavirus remains a threat to residences

But everyone is aware that the virus continues to spread and continues to be a threat to the most vulnerable people – the people it cares for.

As of Dec. 13, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees nursing homes, says 441,000 patients in nursing homes have tested positive for coronavirus in the United States and 86,775 nursing home residents have died. by Covid-19. And 1,258 staff members have also died.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t get a phone call or a message that we have a new positive patient or new staff,” said Nancy Butner, vice president of the Northwest Division of Life Care Centers of America. Butner said some of his employees have been hospitalized recently. And more patients have died at other facilities.

“It’s relentless,” Butner said.

Initially, some families and the public blamed the nurses, doctors and staff at the Kirkland Life Care Center for the outbreak and for not controlling it better.

The phones kept ringing. Families were unable to pass (sometimes doctors did not) due to other unwanted calls.

“It was very difficult to get into a patient’s room and listen to the phone. And you think he’s a doctor, and you get there and there’s someone who says he cares for Covid, giving you a prescription that’s more crazy than them, “Earnst said.

Too often, it was the most discordant type of call: death threats, enough to demand security. Earnest was afraid to go to his car one night after attending to patients.

“My husband said, ‘Make sure you have the gun,'” he said, able to laugh at it now. But he was serious and so were the threats.

Then there was the sight of the devastated families who showed up every day.

Some had lost their mother or father to the facility and others had a family still infected with Covid-19. They sat in the chairs in front of the window of their family member’s room, had lunch with them, and had conversations off the glass.

Inside, staff were dealing with a virus that no one knew enough about.

It was before the public was asked to wear masks, before the elbow blow became the new handshake, before all the symptoms were known. And it was before tens of thousands of people began to get sick and die in New York City that it soon became the second epicenter of the virus.

Life Care Center appealed the sentence. In September, a state administrative judge was largely in favor of the Kirkland Life Care Center, not the state’s findings, which mimicked the federal ones.

The judge said the state agency “provided relatively little evidence that the facility did not actually meet expected standards of care or did not follow public health guidelines.”

The federal appeal has not been decided.

Changes made since the March outbreak

At first, there was not enough coronavirus testing and it took days to get results. They now have quick tests that take minutes.

In some rooms, there were three patients. Now, this happens with one or two if they can be spaced correctly.

Prior to the virus, the facility accepted up to 124 patients. They have now limited it to 97.

At the time, there was constant concern about the lack of personal protective equipment. Now, a nearby facility has a large room filled with boxes of masks, gloves, and other items.

But ten months after the initial viral outbreak, chairs for family members remain outside the bedroom windows. Room numbers are written on the windows.

This has become a semi-permanent device because visitors are not yet allowed to enter.

There are no familiar hands or hugs or kisses. It’s just too dangerous, the virus too contagious. The staff knows it now.

At first, Earnest, a registered nurse, informed doctors and members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of what she saw in patients. Now, they get constant updates and new security protocols from government agencies.

Covid-19 affects staff inside and outside the residence

Butner says what people don’t often think about is that staff have to fight the virus at work and at home.

Earnest lost an uncle against Covid-19 this year. So before Christmas he had to have “the talk” with his mother about how he wanted to die.

“If I got it, what did I want? Did I want to be on a fan or did I want to be … let go?”

It was the toughest conversation he has had with the family. But she says she couldn’t help it. No one should.

It is too terrible when they are taken away and isolated and their desires are not known. Sometimes he doesn’t get fired, she said.

Earnest said he hopes the vaccine will make those talks less urgent. But not everyone in the nursing facility is looking forward to getting it.

“We did a survey with our facility staff before educating about the vaccine. Twenty percent said no, never. They wouldn’t get vaccinated,” he said.

For now, he says, the Life Care Centers of America don’t make it mandatory. The reason is simple.

“We just couldn’t lose 20% of our staff,” he said. “Another effect of this virus is the extreme shortage of nursing staff for all health care.”

He hopes that with education the percentage will be reduced.

For doctor’s assistant Christy Carmichael, his decision to get the vaccine made everyone yearn for it. Last week he had promised one of his patients who had survived Covid-19 that he would get the vaccine.

“I said I’m sure you can. Unfortunately he died,” Carmichael said, before dissolving into tears after receiving the vaccine. “I promised him I would get it, so it’s sad I didn’t see that today.”