The death rate of long-term care residents rose in January, despite a prediction by the Trump administration that those numbers would decrease significantly in the same time period.
What You Need To Know
- Deaths in nursing homes and assisted living facilities rose in January
- An aging experts point to the number of residents not yet vaccinated
- She also said holiday visits may have played a role
Just before the vaccine rollout in December, officials with Operation Warp Speed said it was only a matter of weeks before the death rate would decline in long-term care.
“By the end of the month of January, we should already see a significant decrease in the mortality in the elderly population,” said Dr. Moncef Slaoui, then chief scientific advisor.
But, while possible, experts warned there was little room for error in getting the vaccine to nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Over the following few weeks, Spectrum News reported on cancelled vaccine shipments, a slow moving federal partnership with CVS and Walgreens, and low rates of staff members opting in.
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With that in mind, Spectrum News reached out to USF’s School of Aging Studies, asking researchers what trends they were seeing regarding the death rate in long-term care facilities nationwide.
“It had been going down fairly steadily and then began to rise through December -- and took a steep jump in January.” researcher Dr. Lindsay Peterson said.
Analysis from the department shows a continuous climb in deaths of long-term care residents through December and January, peaking the second week in January. Since then, Peterson said the available data shows numbers plateauing, but still not declining.
Peterson points to issues with the vaccine rollout, low staff vaccination rates and resident vaccination numbers not as high as they could be.
“75% is a fairly high percentage but 1/4th of tens of thousands is a lot of people,” Peterson said, in response to what the state says is the rate at which residents received the first of two doses. “They’re completely exposed, if they’ve not even had the first shot.”
Peterson also said, because there is usually a few weeks lag between COVID-19 infections and deaths, it’s possible holiday visits and travel could’ve also played a role in the increased numbers.
UPDATE: the latest numbers from the state show there are 31 new #COVID19 related deaths reported for people that were either residents or staff at long term care facilities...bringing the total to 9,512 #bn9covid19 #LongTermCare @BN9
— Cait McVey (@CaitMcVey) February 2, 2021
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