FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 19, 2021
COLUMBIA, SC – As of today, all nursing homes and assisted living facilities in South Carolina are required to offer external and / or internal visitation, with few exceptions, based on the new guidelines launched by the Department of Health and Control South Carolina Environmental Protection Agency (DHEC). These newly updated visitation guidelines, available here, follow federal guidelines released on March 10.
“Residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, as well as their families and friends, benefit emotionally, mentally and physically from being able to see their loved ones,” said Nick Davidson, Senior Deputy Public Health. “Although visitation limitations were necessary to protect the health of residents during the pandemic, current recommendations now allow visitation with disease prevention protocols in place.”
As of today, the facilities are required to allow visitation at all times and for all residents. However, there are circumstances that involve a high risk of transmission of COVID-19 when facilities are expected to limit internal visitation to specific residents, as described below.
- Non-vaccinated residents: if the facility’s COVID-19 county positivity rate is greater than 10 percent and less than 70 percent of facility residents are fully vaccinated
- Residents with confirmed COVID-19 infection, vaccinated or unvaccinated, until they meet the criteria to discontinue Transmission Based Precautions
- Quarantined residents, vaccinated or unvaccinated, until they meet the criteria for quarantine release
- A new case of COVID-19 is identified, a facility must suspend internal visitation pending the results of a test run across the facility
Prior to these updated guidelines, 177 facilities reported that they were not allowing visitation based on previous visitation guidelines.
Vaccinations of residents and long-term care staff
As of today, 100 percent (193 of 193) of the state’s nursing homes have had their first and second COVID-19 vaccination clinics completed, and 95 percent (185 of 193) of their third final clinics completed. A total of 98 percent (485 of 495) of the state’s assisted living facilities had their first vaccination clinic completed and 93 percent (462 of 495) had their second clinic completed, with the third final clinic taking place or scheduled as well.
In total, more than 65,000 doses (first and second) of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to approximately 40,000 residents of long-term care facilities in our state, and more than 39,900 doses (first and second) have been administered to approximately 40,000 workers who take care of them.
Although the public should assume that your loved ones’ facilities have internal and external visitation, DHEC strongly recommends that you contact the health facility or assisted living unit to confirm your visitation status before planning a visit. Anyone with doubts that a facility is not following the new visitation guidelines can submit a complaint to DHEC, and the agency will follow up.
You can see the current visitation status of all nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the state online here. As this visitation report is updated weekly, starting in the week of March 30, the panel will begin to reflect the visitation status of each facility in accordance with the updated visitation guidance announced today.
For the latest information on nursing homes and extended care facilities impacted by COVID-19, including cases and deaths, visitation status and county positivity rates, click here. For the latest information on COVID-19 in South Carolina, click here.
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