COVID CASES STABLE IN NURSING HOMES

Vaccinations have reopened one of hardest-hit areas

Nursing homes have been one of the hardest hit areas for COVID-19 over the past year, and now — thanks to the vaccination of most staff and residents — the spread of the virus has mostly stabilized.

Throughout the past year, some facilities have recorded hundreds of cases among their residents and staff, including at the county’s two largest facilities: The Shores Post-Acute in the Birdland neighborhood of San Diego and Country Hills Post Acute in El Cajon.

Both facilities have a resident capacity of 305 beds, and both had more than 200 residents and more than 100 staff test positive throughout the course of the pandemic.

Now, as all skilled nursing facilities in the county have had both the first and second doses of the vaccines distributed to all residents and the staff who opted to receive their shots, the rate of new cases is no longer consistently rising as it did throughout the winter. County health officials announced nine new deaths associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities this week, bringing the total since the pandemic began up to 527. There were no new outbreaks reported this week, and out of the 160 outbreaks that have occurred, there are now 18 active outbreaks, compared to the 29 reported during the previous week.

Unlike community outbreaks, which are defined as three or more cases from separate households, an active outbreak in skilled nursing occurs when one person at the facility tests positive for the virus. Outbreaks are deemed inactive once no one has tested positive for the virus for at least 14 days.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 4,318 residents and 2,892 staff who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in the county’s skilled nursing facilities.

Nursing home advocates push for care reform

On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee held a hearing on how nursing homes have been impacted by the spread of COVID-19, with frontline workers testifying that the pandemic worsened problems that had long plagued the industry.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported this week that as of March 7, there have been 641,608 nursing home residents who have contracted the virus, including 130,296

who have died from it.

“They were at the center of a collision of mismanagement,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who chairs the committee. “In too many nursing homes — even before the pandemic — there was chronic understaffing, slipshod plans for infection control and abuse and neglect of vulnerable residents.”

The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, which represent more than 14,000 nursing homes and assisted living facilities nationwide, urged Congress to support the Care for Our Seniors Act it issued with LeadingAge.

If passed, the act would reform long-term care through clinical improvements to increase the quality of care, workforce improvements to support frontline workers, oversight reforms and structural modernizations.

One change advocates are pushing for is a new federal requirement that all nursing homes have a registered nurse in-house 24 hours a day, which has been associated with better quality of care. To make working in a nursing home more attractive, the organizations propose tax credits and loan forgiveness for registered nurses who choose to work in-house as opposed to at a hospital.