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COVID continues to take toll on nursing homes

3 min read
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Trista Thurston/Observer-Reporter

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Zach Shamberg

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Trista Thurston/Observer-Reporter

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long-term care facilities with COVID-19 cases

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take a toll on seniors in nursing homes.

According to the state Department of Health, 54,465 Pennsylvania residents living in long-term care facilities have tested positive for COVID-19, and 9,023 have died from the virus as of Monday.

Seniors living in long-term care homes account for approximately 10% of COVID cases in Pennsylvania, but account for about 60% of virus deaths.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Association estimates that nearly 250 residents in Pennsylvania’s long-term care facilities, on average, are dying each week.

“When the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 occurred in nursing homes in Washington state, we knew from the beginning that this virus could have an adverse impact on our vulnerable population. It’s been our position that long-term care should be at the epicenter of any relief efforts because they’re at the epicenter of the virus,” said Zach Shamberg, president and CEO of Pennsylvania Health Care Association, a statewide advocacy organization for seniors in long-term care facilities.

Across the state, 1,479 of the approximately 1,900 nursing homes and personal care homes have reported COVID cases.

In Washington and Greene counties, 23 and three facilities, respectively, have reported cases, with 668 and 166 residents in those facilities testing positive for COVID. In Fayette County, 22 facilities have reported a total of 532 cases. In the three counties, 106 residents of long-term care facilities have died.

Winter’s cold weather, along with a holiday travel and gatherings, is predicted to further fuel the spread of the virus.

Shamberg is worried about the climbing COVID-19 cases in Pennsylvania, which has the third-oldest population in the country.

Recent independent research from Harvard Medical School, Brown University’s School of Public Health and the University of Chicago found that the number of COVID cases in the surrounding community had a direct correlation to the number of cases in long-term care facilities, according to the PHCA.

In other words, spread of the virus in communities equals a greater likelihood of spread in nursing homes.

Additionally, COVID is impacting employees at long-term care facilities, where more than 9,800 employees have tested positive.

The employees – who worry about their safety and the health of the people they care for – live in the communities around the facilities in which they work, so if those communities are experiencing rising rates of COVID, it will eventually find its way into the facilities.

“We will be forever grateful to the health-care heroes that have emerged through this crisis, and for what they have done in order to keep their residents safe and healthy,” said Shamberg.

There is some good news. COVID-19 vaccinations have begun at long-term care facilities in Pennsylvania and locally. CVS and Walgreens have been tapped by the federal government to administer the vaccines to residents and employees.

However, noted Shamberg, only 126 nursing homes received the vaccine last week. At that pace, he said, it could be sometime between March and May before the majority of residents and workers at long-term care centers are vaccinated.

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