White House goal on testing nursing homes unmet
— Nearly two weeks ago the White House urged governors to ensure that every nursing home resident and staff member be tested for the coronavirus within 14 days.
It’s not going to happen. A review by The Associated Press found that at least half of the states are not going to meet White House’s deadline and some aren’t even bothering to try.
Only a handful of states, including West Virginia and Rhode Island, have said they’ve already tested every nursing home resident.
Many states said the logistics, costs and manpower needs are too great to test all residents and staff in a two-week window. Some say they need another week or so, while others say they need much more time. California, the most populous state, said it is still working to release a plan that would ensure testing capacity for all residents and staff at skilled nursing facilities statewide.
And still other states are questioning whether testing every nursing home resident and staff, regardless of any other factors, is a good use of time and money.
“At this time it would be fairly useless to do that,” said Nebraska Chief Medical Offi- cer Dr. Gary Anthone, adding that the state would have to repeat the tests almost daily to get more than a snap- shot in time, and the state doesn’t have the capacity when there are others who need to be tested.
Anthone said the state was going to stick with the CDC’s guidelines, which call for test- ing individually when nursing home residents show symptoms or collectively if there is a new confirmed case of COVID-19 in a home.
The varying responses by states to nursing home testing is another example of the country’s patchwork response to the pandemic that also underscores the Trump administration’s limited influence. The president has preferred to offload key responsibilities and decisions to states and governors, despite calls for a coordinated national response.
“All of this is probably not as well thought out as it could have been.” said Dr. Jim Wright, the medical director at a Virginia nursing home where dozens of residents have died. “It sounds more like an impulsive type of directive rather than one that has been completely vetted by providers on the ground.”
On May 11, Trump-heralded his administration’s efforts to boost coronavirus testing and said the U.S. had developed the “most advanced robust testing system in the world, by far.” That same day, Vice President Mike Pence hosted a private conference call with the state’s governors, where White House adviser Dr. Deborah Birx requested that each state target nursing homes to help lower the virus’ death toll.