With the vaccinated elderly susceptible to breakthrough infections, inoculation of workers is becoming more urgent.
Ed note: Our Health Care Committee will be discussing this issue at an upcoming meeting. Do you have an opinion on vaccine mandates for health care workers?
Kenny Holston for The New York Times
By Matt Richtel and Reed Abelson in the NYT
In late spring, the 142 nursing homes operated by the Good Samaritan Society hit a milestone that was unthinkable just four months earlier: Zero cases of Covid-19 across the whole company, from 900 at the peak of the pandemic.
The relief was short-lived.
The case count has ticked up again: It’s still below 100 among residents and staff, the company said, but includes many breakthrough cases of vaccinated residents testing positive. Then last week, two vaccinated residents died with Covid at the Good Samaritan Society-Deuel County nursing home in Clear Lake, South Dakota.
The company said it had pinpointed the cause of the spread there and at other of its facilities: The breakthroughs had happened in the same homes where unvaccinated staff were testing positive, seemingly carrying the virus into the home from the community.
“We fought this virus, and we were winning with the vaccine,” said Randy Bury, chief executive of the Good Samaritan Society, a nonprofit chain that operates in 24 states.
Late last month, the company became one of the largest long-term care chains in the country to order mandatory vaccines for staff, highlighting turmoil within an industry desperate to avoid a repeat of the devastation that swept through this highly vulnerable population.
After sharp drops in infections over the last several months, the number of Covid cases among U.S. nursing-home residents and staff roughly tripled from the week of July 4 to the week ending July 25, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency’s data show that cases of Covid among residents had risen to 1,312, the highest figure reported since early March.
Yes, I agree that we should mandate vaccinations in this community and not only in the Terraces. Given Delta is many, many times more aggressive than ‘classic’ covid 19, and that we now know that breakthrough cases can happen even with those already vaccinated , I think it is a must that staff from outside Skyline must be vaccinated. This is a MAJOR PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY and no one should be actively working here unless they are vaccinated. I love most all the staff at Skyline but my greater concern is that staff and residents here do not ‘pay’ for those who refuse vaccination.