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The Eastern Kentucky nursing home where an unvaccinated worker started an outbreak of a COVID-19 variant that infected 46 people and killed three residents has been identified as the Life Care Center in Morehead.
The March COVID-19 outbreak triggered a federal-state investigation that stressed the critical importance of increasing COVID-19 vaccination rates among staff at such facilities.
Kentucky, with only 44% of nursing home workers vaccinated, trails national trends. About 50% of workers in nursing homes or assisted living report they received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to a recent Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
Kentucky public health officials initially declined to name the site of the outbreak the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used as an example of the risks of unvaccinated nursing home workers in an April 21 report.