Thursday, March 28

Outbreaks in nursing homes double after Christmas celebrations



Christmas celebrations and the expansion of the omicron variant are also taking their toll on nursing homes. The centers with coronavirus outbreaks have doubled in the last three weeks in the province of Alicante, going from 31 on December 20 to 64 accounted for this Wednesday, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health. Thanks to the vaccine, the cases that are detected in the vast majority are mild, although in these three weeks three elderly people who resided in these centers and who contracted the virus have died. In some cases there have also been hospital admissions of the elderly who have been decompensated by the virus from other diseases.

Most of the infections in nursing homes during the last three weeks have occurred among workers, as explained by the employers of the Aerte sector. “The most common thing is that a worker who has gone on vacation for a few days and has met with the family, upon return takes a test and tests positive,” explains José María Toro, president of Aerte. However, there are also cases among the elderly, especially after going out for lunch or dinner with the family during past holidays.

Risk

Toro recalls, in this sense, that the employer’s association he represents asked before Christmas for some kind of limitation for these outings. “We knew that the measure we were proposing was very tough, but we were facing a very complicated cocktail, since these parties have gathered many people from other communities and even from other countries and all with a high circulation of the virus.” From the Ministry of Health they recall that only one positive case of covid is enough for a nursing home to be considered to have an outbreak and all appropriate measures are put in place to stop contagion among the elderly. Measures that are not lifted until 20 days have passed since the last contagion. If the residences have the outbreak controlled, there are no restrictions on visits or departures for the elderly.

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For Aerte, the fact that the majority of covid cases that are registered in nursing homes are mild, should cause a change in the protocols by the Equality and Health ministries. “At the time when there is an outbreak, there can be no new income for the elderly and that means that families cannot organize themselves, when many times it is urgent to enter a relative.” In addition, the Generalitat continues to oblige the centers to have 5% of places blocked to isolate positive cases, which according to Aerte denounces, means that hundreds of places cannot be used in the Valencian Community, despite the deficit of these kinds of resources. “If it is true that the pandemic tends to be milder, as the data are showing, we must advance on these issues,” says Toro.

Last September, the Ministry of Health began to vaccinate residents of nursing homes in the Valencian Community with third doses. Currently 92% of people over 70 years of age in the Valencian Community have already received this booster dose against the coronavirus, which has drastically reduced the incidence of the virus in this population group, the one with the highest risk of becoming seriously ill and die from the disease. Thus, the circulation of the virus among people over 70 years of age is the lowest of all population groups. Among people aged 70 to 79, the incidence is 888 cases and among those over 80 it is somewhat higher, with 906 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Among the twentysomethings, the group where the covid circulates the most, the incidence is soaring in 4,700 cases.

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The death toll also highlights how vaccines have protected the most vulnerable population. Since the end of last March, when the vaccination in all the elderly centers with the first two doses was finished, 17 nursing home residents of the 350 deaths that the pandemic has left overall during these months have died in the province. In the worst moments of the third wave, nursing home deaths came to represent 30% of all deaths.


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