Covid cases fall over 80% among US nursing home staff and residents
Joan Phillips, a certified nursing assistant in a Florida nursing home, loved her job but dreaded the danger of going to work in the pandemic. When vaccines became available in December, she jumped at the chance to get one.
Months later, it appears that danger has faded. After the rollout of Covid vaccines, the number of new Covid cases among nursing home staff fell 83% – from 28,802 for the week ending 20 December to 4,764 for the week ending 14 February, data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows.
New Covid-19 infections among nursing home residents fell even more steeply, by 89%, in that period, compared with 58% in the general public, CMS and Johns Hopkins University data show.
These numbers suggest that “the vaccine appears to be having a dramatic effect on reducing cases, which is extremely encouraging,” said Beth Martino, spokesperson for the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, an industry group.
“It’s a big relief for me,” said Phillips, who works at the North Beach Rehabilitation Center outside Miami. Now, she said, she’s urging hesitant co-workers and anyone else who can to “go out and take the vaccination”.
After a brutal year in which the pandemic killed half a million Americans, despite unprecedented measures to curb its spread – including mask-wearing, physical distancing, school closures and economic shutdowns – the vaccines are giving hope that an end is in sight.
National figures on healthcare worker infections in other settings are hard to come by.
Research in other countries suggests that vaccines have led to big drops in infection. A study of publicly funded hospitals in England indicated that a first dose was 72% effective at preventing Covid-19 among workers after 21 days and 86% effective seven days after the second shot.
Lost on the Frontline, a year-long data and reporting project by KHN and the Guardian, is investigating over 3,500 Covid deaths of US healthcare workers. The monthly number has been declining since December, but deaths often lag weeks or months behind infections.
Along with other healthcare workers, nursing home staff and residents were first in line to get vaccines in December because elderly people in congregate settings are among the most vulnerable to infection: more than 125,000 residents have died of Covid, CMS data shows, while over 550,000 nursing home staff members have tested positive and more than 1,600 have died.
Yet the vaccination rate among staffers is far lower than that of residents. When the first clinics ran from midDecember to mid-January, a median of 78% of nursing home residents took a dose, while the median for staff was only 38%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Now several nursing home associations said the rate of staff vaccination has been climbing, based on informal surveys.
Vaccine uptake by nursing home residents has been “very promising,” said Dr Morgan Katz, a specialist in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University who is advising Covid responses in nursing homes. “I do think this is a huge contributing factor” to the drop in staff cases, she said.
Having even one or two vaccinated people in a building can slow transmission.
Another factor, Katz said, is that “many nursing homes have already experienced large outbreaks – so there are probably a significant proportion of residents and staff who are already immune.” Also, Covid rates have fallen nationally after a spike from holiday travel and gatherings in November and December, so staff members have less exposure in their communities.
But “even though we’re seeing a really wonderful turn in the number of cases,” she said, “we need to remember that as long as the staff is 50 or 30% vaccinated, they remain vulnerable, and they’re also putting incredibly vulnerable long-term care residents at risk.”
Vaccination efforts are racing against time as new Covid variants circulate and some states dramatically relax Covid restrictions, making it easier for the virus to spread.
Distrust fuels vaccine hesitancy
The question of why some workers refuse the vaccine looms. The New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home at Menlo Park endured a major outbreak last year in which more than 100 workers contracted Covid and over 60 residents and a certified nurse assistant, Monemise Romelus, died. Shirley Lewis, a union president representing CNAs and other workers, said it was traumatizing. Still, only about half of workers there have taken the vaccine, Lewis said, and one is out sick with Covid.
“A lot of my members are not too excited about taking this vaccine because they’re afraid,” Lewis said.
Some workers want to wait a little longer to see how safe the vaccine is, she said. Others tell her they don’t trust the vaccines because they were developed so quickly, she said.
Other staffers “feel like it’s an experimental drug,” Lewis said, “because as you know, Blacks, Latinos, other groups have been used for experiments” like the Tuskegee syphilis study, she said.
Vaccine hesitancy is higher among 30- to 49-year-olds, rural residents and Black and Hispanic adults, according to KFF.
Certified nursing assistants, who make up the bulk of long-term care workers, have historically been less likely to get flu vaccines than other healthcare workers, noted Jasmine Travers, an assistant professor of nursing at New York University who studies vaccine hesitancy. Nursing homes typically don’t have nurse educators, who address worker concerns about vaccines in hospitals, she said, and CNAs also face structural barriers such as limited internet access.
Nursing homes tend to be hierarchies commonly led by white staffers, while about 50% of CNAs, at the bottom of the power structure, are Black or Hispanic, she added.
With the Covid vaccine, some are afraid theywill have to take sick time to miss work and don’t want to burden their co-workers, who are already shortstaffed, Travers said.
Deliberate misinformation
Low vaccine uptake among longterm care workers has been a concern nationally – so much so that LeadingAge, a national group representing not-for-profit long-term care facilities, held a virtual town hall about vaccine safety on 4 March with the Black Coalition Against Covid-19.
The event, which drew over 45,000 viewers, was geared toward Black longterm care workers.
Dr Reed Tuckson, co-founder of the Black Coalition Against Covid-19, said viewers raised concerns about fertility, pregnancy and contraindications. He said the event also had “a lot of provocateurs” who insisted, “it’s all a myth, it’s all a lie.”
His group plans to hold more public informational sessions aimed at Black audiences.
“There is no question that the three vaccines that we now have available to us are extraordinarily safe and tremendously effective,” said Tuckson, a former public health commissioner in Washington.
The nursing home industry has set a goal to have 75% of staff members vaccinated nationwide by the end of June.
Hesitancy doesn’t mean refusal
Most nursing homes have not mandated vaccinations, industry officials say, due to fear of losing staff. Because the vaccines were authorized on an emergency basis, liability is also a concern.
Juniper Communities, which runs 22 long-term care facilities in four states and employs almost 1,300 people, had 30 workers leave the job after it mandated vaccines, according to Dr Lynne Katzmann, president and CEO.
Even when staff are initially reluctant to take vaccines, “it doesn’t mean that this is a permanent refusal,” Travers said.
In south-western Ohio, Kenn Daily runs two nursing homes run by Ayden Healthcare. About half of his staff and 85% of residents got vaccinated by midFebruary, he said, and they haven’t had a case of Covid since. Still, he said, vaccine resistance persists among younger staffers who read misinformation online.
“Facebook is the bane of my existence,” Daily said. Workers tell him they worry “they’re going to microchip me,” or that the vaccine will change their DNA.
Now that time has passed since the initial rollout, Daily said, “I’m hoping to put a little pressure on my staff to step up and get vaccinated.”
His message: “It’s working, guys. It’s working very well.”
KHN data editor Elizabeth Lucas contributed to this report.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.
A lot of my members are not too excited about taking this vaccine
Shirley Lewis