New outbreaks of COVID-19 in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are "imminent" in light of recent surges in the virus in states around the country, national nursing home organizations warned governors.
In a letter from the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, officials warned the spikes in cases across the U.S.—combined with ongoing shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing delays—will make it difficult to protect residents from the virus.
These facilities need expedited lab processing times and solutions for on-site testing with rapid results as well as additional support for PPE supplies—especially N-95 masks, officials said in the letter sent Tuesday to the National Governors Association.
They also need support working in close coordination with long-term care providers to reopen facilities to visitors.
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"We urge governors and state health departments to closely monitor the situation in the general population county by county to determine if long term care facilities need additional resources and if visitations should be halted temporarily for the safety of residents and health care workers," they wrote.
Officials from the organizations also pointed to research by Harvard Medical School, Brown University’s School of Public Health and the University of Chicago that showed the level of COVID-19 cases in the surrounding community was the top factor in outbreaks in nursing homes.
"Our own analysis found that approximately three-quarters of all nursing homes cases of COVID-19 resided in counties with greater than a 3.59 per 100,000 seven-day average rate of new cases of COVID-19," they said.