Vulnerable people living in assisted living facilities are at high risk, as are those in nursing homes. But the launch plan for COVID-19 vaccines does not give priority to this group of people in the first phase of vaccinations at the national level. These older individuals, who are physically independent but often in need of medical care, live in the same communal facilities that put nursing home residents at increased risk of contracting the virus.
According to ABC News, assisted living facilities – or ALFs – are not regulated at the federal level, so no data is available on how COVID-19 affected this group of people.
“The risk of spreading and transmitting the community to an assisted living facility is as high as in a nursing home,” said Zach Shamberg, president of the Pennsylvania Health Care Association. In Pennsylvania, the residents who assisted in life were not among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, causing a wait of several months before it was their turn. However, last week, Governor Tom Wolf announced an expansion of vaccine distribution in that state, which would include those living in Phase 1A residents.
Shamberg told ABC News that with the current pace of drug administration in Pennsylvania, many assisted living residents may not receive a second shot until April or sooner or later.
“We are talking about the potential vaccination of the most vulnerable residents in the summer months,” he said. Experts say that the residents who assisted in life fell through the cracks, because public health officials believed that there was only enough vaccine for those in nursing homes.
Even in states that included assisted living residents in their vaccine distribution plan, there were delays and snafus.
These problems have frustrated many facility managers. Robert Loomis, administrator of A Country Place, an assisted living facility in the Tampa Bay area, said he was forced to call Walgreens, one of two pharmacies in charge of delivering vaccines to nursing homes nationwide, to plead with the pharmacy to step up the pace.
“My frustration was with the way the shooting decisions were made,” he told the Tampa Bay Times. ” Weeks passed and we saw a massive distribution to the public, but not to us. ”
CVS and Walgreen Pharmacies administer the drugs at long-term care facilities through the Federal Pharmaceutical Partnership Program for Long-Term Care.
Veronica Catoe, CEO of the Florida Assisted Living Association, told the Times that there remains “frustration and confusion about the initial launch of ALF vaccinations and why these communities have been prioritized behind nursing homes and many in general 65 and over. populations. “
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