/ Tara Frechea of Greeley got infected with the coronavirus last year. She credits her family, including her grandkids, for helping her in what has been a long recovery process.
After a year of coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and assisted living centers, the worst may finally be over.
“The trends appear to be going downward in a good way,” said Bob Murphy, director of Colorado AARP. “You know, after a year, it’s about time.”
Outbreaks at the facilities are down 81% since early January, when vaccination efforts ramped up, dropping steadily from 288 at the start of the year to 54 this week, according to state data analyzed by KUNC. The state’s chief medical officer, Dr. Eric France, called the clinics, which wrapped up in February, “successful in vaccinating our most vulnerable.” Some 150,000 residents and workers were vaccinated, he said in a recent press conference.
Mark Duggan
While the vaccine rollout has hit snags across the U.S., including in many large urban areas, some rural counties with their smaller populations and well-connected communities have gotten creative about getting the doses out quickly to long-term care facilities.
Bingo is back in the dining room. In-person visits have returned, too, though with masks and plexiglass. The Haven Assisted Living Facility’s residents are even planning a field trip for a private movie screening once they’ve all gotten their second round of covid-19 vaccines.
Such changes are small but meaningful to residents in the Hayden, Colorado, long-term care home, and they’re due mostly to the arrival of the vaccine.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR News
A vial of Moderna’s vaccine at the Otero County Health Department’s mass COVID-19 vaccination drive-through clinic for those 70 and older at the Arkansas Valley Fairgrounds in Rocky Ford on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021.
Bingo is back in the dining room. In-person visits have returned, too, though with masks and plexiglass. The Haven Assisted Living Facility’s residents are even planning a field trip for a private movie screening once they’ve all gotten their second round of COVID-19 vaccines.
Such changes are small but meaningful to residents in the Hayden, Colorado, long-term care home, and they’re due mostly to the arrival of the vaccine.
At Colorado’s rural edges, vaccines help assisted living homes crack open the doors
Bingo is back in the dining room. In-person visits have returned, too, though with masks and plexiglass. The Haven Assisted Living Facility s residents are even planning a field trip for a private movie screening once they ve all gotten their second round of covid-19 vaccines.
Such changes are small but meaningful to residents in the Hayden, Colorado, long-term care home, and they re due mostly to the arrival of the vaccine.
While the vaccine rollout has hit snags across the U.S., including in many large urban areas, some rural counties with their smaller populations and well-connected communities have gotten creative about getting the doses out quickly to long-term care facilities. They are circumventing bogged-down Walgreens and CVS, the pharmacy chains contracted for the campaign, and instead are inoculating their older residents with the counties shares of doses.