Covid-19 Facility Updates

Dear Residents, Family Members, and Employees,

We hope your Holidays – although maybe spent differently were still Happy and Cheerful ones!

As I am sure you have heard, the FDA has completed their review of two of the COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccines and the process has started to get people vaccinated in late December and will continue through January and the next couple of months.

We are fortunate that the Federal and State Government have recognized that Long Term Care has been disproportionately affected by this virus and they have targeted employees in health care and residents in Long Term Care as some of the first recipients of this vaccine.

Of course I don’t need to tell you how this virus has impacted us in our facility, the health care community as a whole, and our Country.  It is estimated that 40-50% of COVID-19 related deaths are from Nursing Homes across the Country.  There are several reason for this impact to Nursing Homes: residents have multiple co-morbidities that lead to a more detrimental outcome; and the congregate setting of residents, to name just a few.

For those reasons we join the Federal Government (CMS), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and our State’s Department of Public Health in recommending strongly that every resident, and every employee consent to this vaccine.  Please review the authorization form for this vaccination and the CDC frequently asked questions:

www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/faq.html

CMS has authorized Walgreens, CVS and some local hospitals as the distributors of this vaccine to Nursing Home residents and employees.  We will be working primarily with these pharmacies for vaccinating our residents and employees.  Therefore, if we don’t have authorizations when these pharmacies are in the facility, they will not be able to do the vaccination. It is unclear at this point how often they will visit each facility to conduct this vaccination program.

If you have any questions or need any additional that I may be able to answer, please do not hesitate to contact me.  Any medical questions regarding the vaccine or specifics to taking it, or not, please refer to your primary Physician.