A new unvaccinated health worker has started a Covid-19 outbreak at a nursing home in Kentucky, where the vast majority of residents have been vaccinated, leading to dozens of infections, including 22 cases among residents and employees who have been vaccinated. already fully vaccinated, a new study reported Wednesday.
Most who were infected with the coronavirus despite vaccination did not develop symptoms or needed hospitalization, but a vaccinated individual who was a resident of the nursing home died, according to the study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In total, 26 residents of the institution were infected, including 18 who had been vaccinated and 20 health care staff were infected, including four who had been vaccinated. Two unvaccinated residents also died.
The report highlights the importance of vaccinating both nursing home residents and health care workers entering and leaving the sites, the authors said. While 90 percent of Kentucky’s 83 nursing home residents had been vaccinated, only half of the 116 employees had been vaccinated when the outbreak was identified in March this year.
The study, launched in tandem with one involving Chicago nursing homes, highlighted the importance of maintaining measures such as the use of protective equipment, infection control protocols and routine testing, regardless of the level of vaccination rates. The increase in virus variants has also increased concerns.
Vaccine resistance has been steep among nursing home staff nationwide, and low vaccination acceptance rates are increasing the likelihood of outbreaks in facilities, according to the authors, a team of investigators from the CDC and the Kentucky Department of Public Health.
“In order to protect qualified residents of nursing homes, it is imperative that health care providers, as well as skilled residents of nursing homes, be vaccinated,” the study authors wrote in Kentucky.
The outbreak involved a variant of the virus that has multiple mutations in the spike protein, the type that makes vaccines less effective. Vaccinated residents and health workers at the Kentucky unit were less likely to be infected than those who had not been vaccinated and were much less likely to develop symptoms. The study estimated that the vaccine, identified as Pfizer-BioNTech, showed an efficiency of 66% for residents and 75.9% for employees and was 86% to 87% effective in protecting against symptomatic diseases.
In the Kentucky outbreak, the virus variant is not on the CDC’s list of those considered variants of concern or interest. But, say the study’s authors, the variant has several important mutations: D614G, which demonstrates evidence of increased transmissibility; E484K in the spike receptor binding domain, which is also seen in B.1.351, the variant first recognized in South Africa and P.1. from Brazil; and W152L, which could reduce the effectiveness of neutralizing antibodies.
Meanwhile, in Chicago, routine screening of nursing home residents and staff members identified 627 coronavirus infections at 78 qualified nursing homes in the city in February, but only 22 were found in people who they were already completely vaccinated. Two-thirds of vaccinated people were asymptomatic, according to the report, but two residents were hospitalized and one died.
The authors of the Chicago study said their findings show that nursing homes should continue to follow recommended infection control practices, such as isolation and quarantine, the use of personal protective equipment, and routine testing, regardless of condition. vaccination.
They also stressed the importance of “maintaining high vaccination coverage among residents and staff members” in order to “reduce opportunities for transmission within the facilities and exposure among persons who may not have obtained immunity from protection after vaccination”