NC nursing homes prepare for vaccination effort as stateâs hospitalizations, death toll climb
Long-term care facilities prepare for vaccinations By Emily Featherston | December 22, 2020 at 5:06 PM EST - Updated December 22 at 6:03 PM
NORTH CAROLINA (WECT) - Long term care facilities in North Carolina have been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
Of the stateâs nearly 6,300 COVID-19 deaths, 47.7% can be linked to long term care facilities such as nursing homes and residential care centers.
âAs we continue to see more and more community spread in North Carolina, particularly in this last one and a half to two months, it has been particularly challenging for long term care facilities,â said Adam Sholar, president of the North Carolina Healthcare Facilities Association, a trade group that represents a vast majority of these kinds of facility in the state.
Being a mathematician and former Fulbright Scholar, Jay Leavitt trusts the science behind the incoming COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. He hopes their arrival means he ll soon see his wife again.
Leavitt, a resident of Polk County in Western North Carolina, hasn’t been with his wife, Virginia, since the pandemic began. Virginia lives on their family farm with two cats, two dogs, and two horses, while Jay, who is 85 and paraplegic, receives treatment in a long-term acute care facility about an hour away in Easley, South Carolina.
After a career in academia, he has spent the past several years in nursing homes on both sides of the state border. Virginia would always visit, until recently. Once COVID-19 started tearing through congregate living facilities like wildfires nationwide, his nursing homes clamped down on visitations.
North Carolina reported its largest one-day increase of COVID-19 hospitalizations in at least a month as hospitals continue vaccinating their first employees.
There were 2,735 people hospitalized with coronavirus Monday, 181 more than the previous day. Statewide hospitalization levels have increased every day but one this month, and state-collected data shows only 17.6% of intensive care unit beds are currently empty and staffed.
Out of more than 34,000 COVID-19 tests administered in North Carolina Sunday, 10.9% were positive. This marks the seventh consecutive day positivity rates exceeded 10%, more than double the 5% level state officials shave said they d prefer to see.
The state added 5,236 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, and the virus has now killed 5,881 North Carolinians.