Nursing homes to get ‘surge’ in testing

Ducey wants all 147 facilities in AZ tested

Steady streams of cars have pulled up outside drugstores, clinics and even a sports stadium over the last two Saturdays as part of the state’s highly touted COVID-19 testing blitz.

But the state’s residents most vulnerable to the disease — those who live in nursing homes — were the ones least able to jump in cars and drive to get tested.

The blitzes have been aggravating for senior advocates, who say on-site testing blitz at nursing homes should have been done weeks ago. A growing number of long-term care facilities are struggling with COVID-19 outbreaks, and in Maricopa County, two out of every three deaths from the virus are residents of long-term care facilities.

Two months after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey issued a declaration of emergency, priority testing is finally coming to the state’s most vulnerable residents. Ducey on Tuesday announced plans to “surge” testing into the state’s 147 nursing homes as he

also announced that Arizona’s stay-athome order will expire after Friday.

“We are clearly on the other side of this pandemic. And we will be focusing resources and supplies and care to those who need it most,” he said, referring to the population age 65 and over.

The vast majority of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities haven’t had access to universal testing and are struggling to find enough personal protective equipment, such as gowns and masks. While testing availability has improved in recent weeks, tests for employees or staff who don’t have symptoms are still difficult to come by.

On Monday, Vice President Mike Pence told the nation’s governors on a video conference call that the federal government strongly recommends that nursing homes test all residents and staff.

“We really believe that all one million nursing home residents need to be tested within next two weeks as well as the staff,” added Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House new coronavirus task force, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Associated Press.

The Arizona Health Care Association, the state’s largest professional advocacy organization for nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, has partnered with Sonora Quest to conduct more than 30,000 COVID-19 tests in the next two to three weeks at nursing homes, said Dave Voepel, the association’s executive director. He said the first phase will be for residents and staff at nursing homes.

“We hope to get to assisted living in the next phase,” he said.

Advocates for seniors say the latest actions are laudable. But such initiatives are overdue, they say, as the new coronavirus has ravaged nursing homes. In Maricopa County, 142 longterm care facilities — which include nursing homes, hospice, rehabilitation and assisted living centers — have reported at least one case of COVID-19, up from just 30 facilities a month ago.

As of Monday, about 1,000 long-term care residents had been infected in the state’s largest county and 175 of them had died. Another 458 staffers have been infected.

A Glendale nursing home, on the campus of Glencroft Center for Modern Aging, became the latest long-term care facility to report a coronavirus outbreak when it recently reported nearly 70 confirmed COVID-19 cases among residents and staff and seven deaths.

Pennington Gardens, an assisted-living facility in Chandler, has reported as many as 20 resident deaths, up from 13 last month, according to notification letters sent to families.

Dana Marie Kennedy, state director of AARP Arizona, said she recognizes tests have been difficult to come by during the pandemic, But if state officials had the capacity to start a drivethrough testing blitz on May 2, “then why didn’t we start where we are seeing drastic increases daily?”

Nursing home patients are among the most vulnerable groups to new coronavirus infections because of their advanced age and underlying health conditions.

More than 26,000 residents and staff have died from outbreaks of the virus at the nation’s nursing homes and longterm care facilities, according to an Associated Press survey based on state health departments and media reports. They represent a third of all coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S.

Despite the rapid rise in deaths, industry experts say nursing homes and assisted-living communities have not been a priority for testing or supplies.

Early on, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prioritized testing for people with symptoms of COVID-19, rather than universal testing at nursing homes.

The lack of access to tests has made it impossible to control outbreaks, nursing home administrators say, especially among patients with no symptoms, who are known as “silent spreaders.”

The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, which represent more than 14,000 long-term care facilities, in late April called on state and federal governments to expand and prioritize testing and requested emergency funding to help them respond.

Mark Parkinson, the groups’ president and CEO, released a statement on Monday that said he supports the White House recommendation to test nursing homes in the next two weeks. He said while universal testing in nursing homes is a good first step, it’s essential that rapid-results testing be widely available in coming weeks. He said regular testing will also be needed in nursing homes and assisted-living communities to monitor and protect residents.

“It is time to rally around nursing home and assisted living residents,” he said, “the same way we have around hospital patients and workers.”