Melissa Bailey and Shoshana Dubnow report today that Covid’s cases have dropped by more than 80% among US nursing home employees and residents:
Joan Phillips, a certified nursing assistant at a Florida nursing home, loved her job, but feared the danger of going to work during the pandemic. When vaccines became available in December, she took the chance to get one.
Months later, it seems that the danger has disappeared. After the launch of Covid vaccines, the number of new Covid cases among the nursing home staff dropped 83% – from 28,802 in the week ending December 20 to 4,764 in the week ending February 14, data from the Centers for Disease Control show. Medicare and Medicaid Services.
New Covid-19 infections among nursing home residents fell even more sharply, 89% in that period, compared with 58% in the general public, data from CMS and Johns Hopkins University show.
These figures suggest that “the vaccine appears to be having a dramatic effect in reducing cases, which is extremely encouraging,” said Beth Martino, a spokesman for the American Health Care Association and the 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 is encouraging hesitant coworkers and anyone else who can “go out and get the vaccine”.
After a brutal year in which the pandemic killed half a million Americans, despite unprecedented measures to curb its spread – including masks, physical distance, school closures and economic downtime – vaccines are giving hope that the end is over. in cash.
It is difficult to obtain national figures on infections from healthcare professionals elsewhere. Research in other countries suggests that vaccines have caused major drops in infection. A study of publicly funded hospitals in England indicated that a first dose was 72% effective in preventing Covid-19 among workers after 21 days and 86% effective seven days after the second injection.
Lost on the Frontline, a one-year KHN and Guardian data and reporting project, is investigating more than 3,500 Covid deaths of health workers in the United States. The monthly number has been decreasing since December, but deaths are often weeks or months behind infections.
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