Utah nursing homes receive their first COVID-19 vaccines with noises and applause

“It’s absolutely a relief,” said Wendy Moench, 69, who was the second resident of The Ridge Foothill to receive the vaccine on Tuesday. “I feel happy. It’s wonderful, a burden off my shoulders. A feeling of real relief for having found something that will help us. It looks like a great achievement for America ”.

Since the first vaccines were administered on December 15 in Utah, 20,417 doses have been distributed – 2,874 since the previous day – reported the Utah Department of Health. Utah Phase 1 began with frontline hospital staff.

UDOH’s daily report on Tuesday also said that another 2,736 people had contracted COVID-19 since Monday – and another 16 Utahns died from the virus.

UDOH reported a seven-day average of 2,035 new positive test results per day – slightly above the weeklong averages on Monday and Sunday, but that was the lowest since early November.

Hospitalizations also increased slightly, with 506 Utah patients admitted simultaneously. In total, 10,763 patients were hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, up to 120 in one day.

On Tuesday at The Ridge Foothill, Moench and fellow resident Joan Postman were the first to sit at the table where nurses in the now familiar wrappings of personal protective equipment – masks, face shields, rubber gloves and anti-coveralls. danger – formed an assembly line to prepare the syringes. Another team worked on the patient queue, taking temperatures and making sure the paperwork was in order.

Postman was the first to shoot, accompanied by applause and some noise, making the room sound as if New Year’s Eve had arrived a few days earlier. Then it was Moench’s turn, getting more applause.

When they got up, the attendants escorted a third resident, Betty Fife, to sit down for the vaccination. She liked the celebratory noise that came with it. “I love crowds,” she said to the nurse who gave her the injection.

Mandy Hampton, chief operating officer at The Ridge – which also runs a health center in Holladay – said that most of the 109 residents and 104 employees of The Ridge Foothill should receive their doses of the Modern version of the vaccine. Some residents are waiting for their doctors’ approval to ensure that their current medications do not interfere with the vaccine’s effectiveness, Hampton said.

Residents and employees of The Ridge Cottonwood in Holladay began receiving the vaccine on Monday afternoon, Hampton said.

“We were ecstatic,” said Needles. “Having the vaccine available is an open door to closing this chapter … of this pandemic.”

Most residents did not hesitate to get the vaccine, Needles said. “When we brought it up, they just said, ‘Give me the newspaper [to sign]. I’m ready for that. ‘They were part of the polio era, so in our community, they led the way towards the acceptance of the vaccine and the willingness to get it. “

Hampton at The Ridge agreed. “This was not an anti-xxx generation,” she said. “They know the effectiveness of what vaccines can do and how it affects their lives.”

Both Ridge Foothill and Woodland Park, like many long-term health centers across the country, experienced outbreaks in the early stages of the pandemic. The Ridge, Hampton said, saw a dozen residents die from COVID-19 in May; The April Woodland Park outbreak was mainly confined to employees, according to UDOH records.

“It’s been very difficult,” said Moench. “We have been away from our friends and family. We were away from our roommates. We were unable to eat in the dining rooms. We had to eat in our rooms. “

Hampton and Needles said it will be up to the state health department to decide when long-term care facilities can begin to ease restrictions in place to stop the spread of COVID-19. That may not happen, Hampton said, until residents receive their second dose of the vaccine, in about a month.

Utah hospitals and pharmacies had 102,025 doses of the vaccine, both in the Pfizer and Modern versions, sent on Tuesday, according to the UDOH panel. About 20% of that amount was administered, reports UDOH.

“Sent” does not always mean “arrived,” said Jenny Johnson, a UDOH spokesman – and, because of logistical obstacles, sometimes the delay between sending vaccines and the time when doses can be placed on the someone’s arm can be as long as a week. Now that long-term care institutions are distributing doses of the vaccine, that gap is expected to close in the coming days, Johnson said.

Last week, 24.7% of all tests were positive – an increasing rate that suggests that an increasing number of infected people are not being tested, state officials said.

There were 7,347 new test results reported Tuesday, below the week-long average of about 8,400 new tests per day.

Beaver, Millard and Sanpete counties had the worst rates of new cases per capita, with 1 in 48, 49 and 52 residents per capita testing positive for the virus in the past two weeks – meaning that their cases are considered “active” .

These rates increase to 1 in 42 residents with active infections in the cities of Sanpete Valley and 1 in 44 residents in the Delta-Fillmore area. But that represents a steady decline in the Sanpete Valley, where less than a week ago 1 in 34 residents had active infections – the highest rate in any Utah community since the pandemic began.

Locally, more than 1 in 70 residents had active infections in six of Utah’s 99 “small areas”, used by state officials to study health trends. In addition to the counties of Sanpete and Millard, they are: Eagle Mountain and Cedar Valley; Salem City; Lehi; and Saratoga Springs.