The COVID-19 vaccines have arrived at the New Hampshire long-term care facility and are beginning to be deployed, after some concern about minimal communication and scheduling problems.
Long-term institutions are receiving their vaccines through a federal partnership with CVS and Walgreens. New Hampshire nursing homes were particularly hard hit, with 79% of deaths in the state occurring in long-term care facilities, the highest rate in the country.
The New Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton, an active outbreak site that recently saw a decline in active cases and 36 deaths in total, said it would start vaccinating people on Wednesday.
The Woodlawn Care Center gave residents and employees their first doses on Tuesday. The Newport nursing home was the site of a recently closed COVID-19 outbreak, where 33 residents and 24 employees tested positive and four people died.
Administrator Chris Martin called the vaccine’s arrival “a breath of fresh air”.
“I know this is not going to allow us to turn a dime or get life back to normal here, but it’s good to know that at least we won’t have an outbreak that sweeps 80% of residents and a third of the team,” he said.
Martin said that almost all residents want to be immunized, but only 60% of employees do. Other facilities say they are seeing similar trends, probably due to misinformation about online side effects and hesitation about a new vaccine.
“There are some frank conspiracy theories … things that have been unmasked, how to cause infertility problems, that have been unmasked,” he said. “Some people were a little scared because of the new variety in England.”
More staff will be vaccinated when another clinic is held next month, said Martin.
According to the New Hampshire Health Care Association, almost all long-term care facilities in the state have communicated with their pharmacy partners. But some say they are still waiting for official confirmation on clinic dates.
Health officials said this week that they hope to have 100,000 of the state’s highest-risk people immunized with at least their first dose by the end of January.