CONNECTICUT, USA — The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine brought a lot of hope, but it also brought some confusion for the nursing homes. Both nursing home staff and residents fall under Phase 1-a of the state's vaccine rollout plan. So, when hospital workers were getting injected Monday many people thought the nursing homes would be too.
Despite being part of the same phase, the hospitals and long-term care facilities are part of two different vaccine distribution timelines. Hospitals came first. "Soon thereafter to work in the long-term care facilities," said Dr. Kevin Ban, the Chief Medical Officer of Walgreens.
Pfizer’s shipments went directly to the hospitals, which also serve as distribution hubs for the vaccine across the state.
The long-term care industry is getting their vaccine from the retail pharmacies CVS and Walgreens as part of a federally coordinated vaccine partnership program. The pharmacies will begin nationwide vaccinations on December 21st. But, a handful of CT nursing homes could get the vaccine as soon as Dec. 18th. "This allows all the nursing homes to quickly receive the vaccine. All of the residents and staff to be vaccinated very efficiently and effectively, "remarked Mag Morelli, the President of Leading Age Connecticut. She represents all the state's not-for-profit nursing facilities."
The logistics surrounding vaccine rollout are challenging. Cold storage transportation and dosing three weeks apart. Walgreens says they are ready. "Over the course of the last 5 years we’ve conducted more than 150,00 flu clinics which are very similar to the COVID clinics we will start next week so we have deep infrastructure to make this happen," said Dr. Ban.
"They will keep track of that.," said Morelli. "They will be sure for both staff and residents that they’ll be receiving the same vaccine at the right intervals of time, so they’ll get two doses."
But then there’s the issue of consent to receive the vaccine. The CDC says verbal consent is enough, while the pharmacies continue to ask for written consent. It's a challenging hurdle for residents with dementia or whose family is hard to contact. "That needs to be a written consent or there needs to be a proxy where if the person can’t decide for themselves then their healthcare proxy gives that information," said Dr. Ban of Walgreens.
Morelli added, "We originally were told we needed to provide certain written consent forms, but the CDC has clarified that a verbal consent would be permitted so we’re just working with the pharmacies right now the straighten that out."
With hope just days away, pressing questions remain like what will the vaccine mean for visitation? Could residents and family members who receive the shot be allowed to have in-person visits for reasons other than for compassionate care? "Talking with CMS about visitation. There is no clear understanding at this point on if there will be any changes. We’re asking for more information related to that because I think that’s the most important thing to residents and family members," said Mairead Painter, the long-term Ombudsman for Connecticut.
"It feels like up until now we’ve been walking into the forest. The vaccines feels like we beginning to walk out of the forest. But this is not a light switch to on it’s going to be a dimmer switch that you slowly turn up," said Dr. Ban.
We are told that Cherry Brook Healthcare in Canton will be one of the first nursing homes to receive the vaccine. Even though the rollout in nursing homes is just a week behind hospitals, days matter. Just last week another 70 Connecticut nursing home residents died of COVID-19 and more than 450 were infected.