Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Perpetually Under-Staffed Nursing Homes Across Country Brace For Virus That Hits Elderly Population Hard
The Associated Press: Nursing Homes Face Unique Challenge With Coronavirus
From Miami to Seattle, nursing homes and other facilities for the elderly are stockpiling masks and thermometers, preparing for staff shortages and screening visitors to protect a particularly vulnerable population from the coronavirus. In China, where the outbreak began, the disease has been substantially deadlier for the elderly. In Italy, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in Europe, the more than 100 people who died were either elderly, sick with other complications, or both. (Kennedy and Gomez Licon, 3/8)
The Wall Street Journal: Nursing Homes Brace For Coronavirus Outbreak Amid Staffing Concerns
Nursing homes across the country are bracing themselves for further spread of the new coronavirus amid worries over shortages of staff to care for their vulnerable elderly residents. The risks were highlighted when a facility in Kirkland, Wash., emerged as the site of some of the earliest U.S. cases of infection and deaths linked to the virus. World-wide, many of those who have died from the virus are elderly. (Hayashi, 3/6)
The New York Times: How To Help Protect A Family Member In A Nursing Home
More than 10 people in the United States have died and over 200 have been sickened after contracting the coronavirus that continues to spread around the globe. The deaths have occurred in California and Washington State, including several residents at a nursing facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland. The death toll at a facility with a population vulnerable to disease and infection, and indications that the virus was spreading for weeks, raises difficult questions: Are nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the United States prepared for a serious public health threat? If you have a loved one in a facility, should you be concerned about their health and safety? And what, if anything, can you do? (Ortiz, 3/6)
The Wall Street Journal: Nursing Home At Center Of Washington Coronavirus Outbreak Target Of Criticism
Washington state officials are considering taking over a nursing home tied to 10 deaths in the Covid-19 outbreak after the facility’s owners drew criticism from local officials and families for spotty and at times chaotic dissemination of information. At one point, a woman whose mother died at the facility this week of still-unknown causes said she was later contacted by a nursing-home staffer to say her mother was alive and well. Federally deployed doctors and nurses are expected to begin helping staff at the Life Care Center of Kirkland nursing home this weekend, augmenting an in-house staff that has been reduced by quarantines. (Koh, Kamp and Evans, 3/7)
The Wall Street Journal: Nursing Home In Washington State Calls For More Help In Coronavirus Outbreak
The Seattle-area nursing home at the epicenter of a fatal coronavirus outbreak called for more aid, as a federally deployed medical team arrived and deaths linked to the facility increased. Deaths tied to the outbreak at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, in Washington, increased to 14 Saturday, Public Health Seattle & King County reported. At least 19 people have died nationwide. The nursing home, which has faced criticism from public-health officials and residents’ families, received some test kits to be used for residents and extra medical staff in recent days, but it needs more, Tim Killian, a facility spokesman, said at a briefing Saturday. (Evans and Kamp, 3/7)
The Washington Post: ‘Germ-Fest’ Party Preceded Deadly Nursing Home Outbreak
In the days before the Life Care Center nursing home became ground zero for coronavirus deaths in the U.S., there were few signs it was girding against an illness spreading rapidly around the world. Visitors came in as they always did, sometimes without signing in. Staffers had only recently begun wearing face masks, but the frail residents and those who came to see them were not asked to do so. And organized events went on as planned, including a purple-and-gold-festooned Mardi Gras party last week, where dozens of residents and visitors packed into a common room, passed plates of sausage, rice and king cake, and sang as a Dixieland band played “When the Saints Go Marching In.” (Condon and Johnson, 3/6)
Modern Healthcare: Coronavirus Exposes Lax Practices For Infection Control
As coronavirus continues to spread across the U.S., experts say the outbreak is revealing the healthcare industry inability to control infections at its own facilities or protect employees. Twelve people have died from the virus as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with nine linked to an outbreak within a single nursing home in suburban Seattle. On Wednesday, California reported its first COVID-19 death involving a patient who was being treated at a hospital near Sacramento, according to reports. (Johnson, 3/6)
