Covid-19 cases declining in LTC facilities

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Federal data following Coronavirus case trends in nursing home facilities appears to indicate that things are steadily returning back to normal. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, David Grabowski, Ph.D., Harvard professor and healthcare policy expert stated, “What we’re seeing is a lot of early, positive signs. They’re all encouraging and collectively suggest the vaccine is potentially starting to take effect”.

Recently released data revealed that weekly coronavirus cases and deaths in nursing homes have declined steadily since topping out at 32,000 during the week of Dec. 20th. The following numbers, released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, show a clear and steady decline since then.

Week of Dec. 27 27,919
Week of Jan. 03 26,261
Week of Jan. 10 25,269
Week of Jan. 17 17,584

These numbers suggest that the vaccination is working to stem the spread of infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 3.1 million shots have been administered at long-term care facilities. While it is still too early to determine what impact vaccination will have in LTCs, the data is promising.