Positivity rate a factor in nursing home visitations
Active COVID-19 cases have been closing nursing homes to visitors across Pennsylvania, barely a month after the state began allowing visitors to return following a monthslong closure as the disease pushes deep into rural America.
Now, new federal guidelines for nursing homes mean visitation will be increasingly controlled by the COVID-19 positive test rate in the county where the facility is located. Here’s what’s new: in addition to having no cases of COVID-19 among staff or residents for 14 days at a nursing home, the county where the home is located must have a positive COVID-19 test rate under 10%.
The rule change will become crucial if counties exceed the 10% tripwire, which will close nursing homes to visitors.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new nursing home visitation guidelines Sept. 17 and the Pennsylvan i a Department of Health adopted them Oct. 13. Both agencies made exceptions to the rules for residents who are suffering physical or emotional problems related to being isolated from family and friends.
The changing visitation rules are part of a blizzard of shifting priorities and required interventions by government agencies that have affected long-term care facilities throughout the pandemic as they try to keep visitors and staff safe. Although the disease is more prevalent in urban areas, the share of cases in nonmetro areas rose to 11.1% on Sept. 1 from 3.6% on April 1, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.
Huntingdon, Westmoreland and Bradford counties led Pennsylvania in the percentage of COVID-19 tests that came back
positive for the week ending Thursday as new cases statewide reached 1,857 on Saturday, continuing a streak of days when the count topped 1,000 cases. Huntingdon County, located about 135 miles east of Pittsburgh, led Pennsylvania with a COVID-19 positive test rate of 9.9%, followed by 8.9% in Westmoreland County and 8.3% in Bradford County.
In Westmoreland County, cases of COVID-19 have closed 13 of the 19 nursing homes to visitors, while in Bradford County, located about 125 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, the 200-bed county-owned nursing home is closed to visitors after 83 residents and 43 staff members, including 15 new cases as of Oct. 16, have been diagnosed with the disease.
In Huntingdon County, where 91 new cases were reported for the week ending Thursday compared to the previous week, Commissioner Mark Sather told WJAC-TV cases at long-term care facilities were driving the increase.
“It’s more coming from long-term care facilities, and unfortunately, those individuals are the most prone or at risk,” Mr. Sather told the Johnstown television station Wednesday.
Huntingdon is also home to two state prisons, where a total of 71 people had tested positive for the disease as of Friday, according to the Department of Corrections.
Nursing home visitation is stopped if a resident or staff member becomes infected with the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, according to the new federal rules. To open again to in-person visits, the facility must be infectionfor two weeks.
As an alternative, many facilities have been allowing for visits outside the
building on patios or in courtyards or through “window visits.”
County-owned nursing homes in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties are prohibiting visitation while the facilities battle outbreaks of the disease at Kane Community Center Scott and Westmoreland Manor in Hempfield. Shutting down visitation comes just a month after the state Department of Health began allowing residents to have visits from family and friends since the pandemic sparked a shutdown of visitation in March.
Separately, schools in Westmoreland and Huntingdon counties can continue educating students both in schools and remotely, according to state
Department of Education recommendations. The department uses a formula that combines counties’ COVID-19 positivity rate and number of cases per 100,000 population to determine whether in-school classes should be held.
The level of community transmission of COVID-19 in seven counties — Bradford, Centre, Lebanon, Montour, Northumberland, Snyder and Union — is considered “substantial” by the department, so only remote learning is recommended. School districts are not mandated to follow the department’s recommendations.