Tuesday, December 22, 2020
The Iowa Health Care Association has released details for upcoming steps as health care workers and residents in long-term care settings are the first priorities for vaccinations.
There are three pharmacies that have been assigned to complete vaccine administration in long-term care facilities across Iowa.
Methodist Manor Retirement Community in Storm Lake has been assigned to Walgreens, according to CEO Nick Landgraf.
All Iowa facilities will be receiving the Pfizer vaccine. Vaccination entails receiving an injection, then 21 days later receiving a 2nd booster injection, Landgraf said. A signed consent for will be required for residents to receive the vaccine.
Iowa again reported no new confirmed COVID-19 deaths Monday, keeping the state’s death toll at 3,589 and marking the third time the state has reported zero deaths in the past five days.
According to data from the Iowa Department of Public Health, the state recorded 601 new COVID-19 cases from 11 a.m. Sunday to 11 a.m. Monday, bringing the total of cases to 267,748.
Among those additions were 116 new cases among children ages 17 and younger and one new case involving an education worker. A total of 27,725 children in Iowa have tested positive for the virus since March, and 10,623 education workers have tested positive.
The novel coronavirus, by definition, is a new phenomenon. While its impact in Iowa is unprecedented in recent history, it also has brought much-needed attention to some old problems.
Case in point: The workforce shortage in Iowa’s long-term care facilities. Advocates for the elderly and disabled have been sounding the alarm for years, but it took a deadly infectious disease pandemic to earn widespread awareness among Iowans.
Nursing homes have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with almost every facility affected. Residents there make up less than 3 percent of Iowa’s population, but account for about half the state’s COVID-19 deaths.
Even though the first doses of the COVID vaccine are arriving in Iowa as early as next week, the Iowa Health Care Association (IHCA) is urging caution. Brent
By Todd Epp
(Creative Commons photo via Pxhere)
DES MOINES, Iowa (KELO.com) Some local pharmacists question whether CVS and Walgreens have enough staffing to quickly administer COVID-19 vaccinations to Iowa’s nursing home residents by themselves, especially in the state’s hard-to-reach rural areas.
Iowa state officials and company representatives said they believe there are enough pharmacists and technicians to equitably reach all of the state’s long-term care facilities. But independent pharmacists said the national chains’ mass hiring initiatives and efforts to poach already-employed workers point otherwise.
A flyer from a CVS Health manager who was trying to recruit pharmacists in Des Moines.