■ Coronavirus cases have dropped at U.S. nursing homes.

Vaccine steers virus decline in long-term facilities, experts say

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Coronavirus cases have dropped at U.S. nursing homes and other long-term care facilities over the past few weeks, offering a glimmer of hope that health officials attribute to the start of vaccinations, an easing of the post-holiday surge and better prevention, among other reasons.

More than 153,000 residents of the country’s nursing homes and assisted living centers have died of COVID-19, accounting for 36 percent of the nation’s pandemic death toll, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Many of the roughly 2 million people who live at such facilities remain cut off from loved ones because of the risk of infection. The virus still kills thousands of them weekly.

The overall trend for long-term care residents is improving, though, with fewer new cases recorded and fewer facilities reporting outbreaks. Coupled with better figures for the country overall, it’s cause for optimism.

“We definitely think there’s hope and there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” said Marty Wright, who heads 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 already have received at least an initial dose.

Researchers and industry leaders say they are seeing marked improvements after months in which some nursing homes lost dozens of residents to the disease and had to keep others in semi-isolation for protection. Some 2,000 nursing homes are now virus-free, or about 13 percent nationally, according to an industry group.

In West Virginia, where about 30 percent of the state’s roughly 2,080 COVID-19 deaths occurred at long-term care centers, fewer outbreaks are happening and fewer residents are requiring hospitalization, said Wright, chief executive of the West Virginia Health Care Association. Pennsylvania-based Genesis Health Care, which operates more than 325 nursing homes, assisted-living facilities or senior living communities in 24 states, has seen similar improvements, said spokeswoman Lori Mayer.

The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, an industry trade organization, said data from about 800 nursing homes where initial vaccine doses were administered in late December offered promising results.

After reaching a high of almost 73,600 new weekly cases in longterm care facilities nationwide in mid-December, the number was down 31 percent by late January, to about 50,000 new cases per week, an Associated Press analysis found.