From the It’s-about-time department: Nursing homes and long-term care facilities finally have started to require their health workers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported as of Aug. 6 that ~1.6 million long-term care residents and 1.3 million health workers in the care facilities were fully vaccinated…..
Continue ReadingNursing homes
Biden Administration reinstates stiff fines for nursing home safety violations
The Biden Administration has ended another egregious health-related policy of its predecessor, reversing the leniency the Trump Administration gave to nursing homes in penalizing them for putting residents at risk or injuring them. Regulators may now return to slapping owners and operators of problem facilities with mounting, costly daily fines, rather than giving them a….
Continue ReadingFor nursing homes, a different kind of infection and unvaccinated staff raise alarms
Alarms are sounding yet again that the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities may need to increase important infection control measures and reexamine what’s going on with the staff they need to safeguard patients. Details are still emerging. But federal officials say they have sufficient evidence to report a new outbreak of Candida….
Continue ReadingNursing home deaths spiked 32% in 2020 due to pandemic, U.S. watchdog finds
The coronavirus pandemic slammed nursing homes and other long-term care facilities hard in two heart-breaking waves eight months apart. Covid-19 caused the institutions’ fatalities to spike by almost a third over the year before, leaving roughly 170,000 of the elderly, injured, and ill dead, as well as 4 in 10 Medicare-covered residents infected. Those are….
Continue ReadingCovid shots are voluntary. Mostly. But pressures are growing on unvaccinated.
In the crunch to quell the coronavirus pandemic and to do so by getting as many people as possible their protective shots, public health officials consistently have stressed a big V in the national vaccination campaign: Voluntary. But as hundreds of millions of people around the globe have willingly gotten them and the vaccines have….
Continue ReadingNew health care leader looks to clean up the nursing home mess
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure has won U.S. Senate confirmation and will become the first black woman to lead the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS. The longtime government official, who was an adviser to President Obama and has served in multiple other top federal roles (shown right, with her boss, Health and Human Services….
Continue ReadingBig reconsideration under way for long-term care as coronavirus toll eases
Residents and their loved ones may have reached a major turning point with nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, agonizing as to whether the institutions really can provide safe, hygienic, and welcoming places for the vulnerable — or whether other, tough options must be considered. Who can forget that that 132,000 elderly, injured, and….
Continue ReadingCan U.S. billions keep seniors at home and out of problem nursing homes?
As the coronavirus pandemic’s most catastrophic effects recede in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, notably due to vaccinations and other public health measures, residents and their loved ones still face costly, confounding issues in safeguarding the aged, sick, and injured. The Biden Administration wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to help…..
Continue ReadingU.S. teeters between vaccines’ rising successes and pandemic’s fourth wave
The coronavirus vaccine has shown powerful protective qualities when medical scientists scrutinized its large-scale results in real life. It has demonstrated great potency in safeguarding kids ages 12-15, in early test results from the shots’ makers. The inoculation appears to be lasting, ensuring patients for at least six months after did not suffer serious infection….
Continue ReadingThe data could not be clearer: Stubborn pandemic demands caution still
In 25 states, including in Virginia and Maryland, data show coronavirus cases are running higher than U.S. averages and staying high. In seven states, notably Michigan, new virus-related deaths are increasing. A half dozen states have recorded hundreds of confirmed cases involving corona virus infections with a variant known as B 117 that was first….
Continue Reading