Q: Will booster vaccines be available in communities?
A: Many communities are seeking to coordinate booster clinics for those vaccinated last winter and spring for COVID-19. Our goal is to provide onsite clinics eight months following the second round of vaccine shots that were offered in a community last winter. We’ve partnered with local retail pharmacies and Pharmerica to provide onsite access. With vaccines now so readily available at pharmacies, grocery stores, and medical offices, communities may also coordinate transportation as needed for residents to get their boosters.
What about immunocompromised residents?
In assisted living, memory support, and skilled nursing neighborhoods, we are identifying residents whose health conditions qualify them for a third vaccine- a stronger dosage than the booster- and are offering third vaccines in conjunction with many of our booster clinics, or sooner where possible and needed. In residential living, we are educating residents who may have the following conditions of their option for a third vaccine:
- Active tumor treatment
- Organ donation recipient
- Immunosuppression therapy for stem cell or CAR-T-cell transplant
- Moderate to severe primary immunodeficiency
- High-dose corticosteroid treatment
Q: How are visitors being screened?
A: We screen everyone entering the building everyday immediately, including team members and essential care providers. Screening includes:
- Fever screening, we take temperatures of everyone, including team members
- Cough and/or shortness of breath
- Sore throat
- Any travel outside of country or state
- Identifying if they have visited another senior living community
- Questions on purpose of visit
- Once screening is complete, visitors must wash hands before visiting residents and after leaving the community
Q: Will CLC/Cappella require the vaccine for team members?
CLC & Cappella leadership has been discussing this weekly since the vaccine became available. Ultimately, we feel it’s one of the most important steps we can take to protect resident and team member health, safety, and freedom in the communities we serve. Fortunately, the majority of Cappella/CLC team members have already chosen to be vaccinated.
Two key factors tipped the scales. First, the Delta variant causes more than twice as many infections per ill individual as earlier variants of COVID-19. In fact, a recent study of by The American Health Care Association and The National Center for Assisted Living showed the higher team member vaccination rates, the lower the resident COVID-19 infection rate. And for communities where team members were 100% vaccinated, resident COVID-19 deaths were nearly eliminated.
Second, with FDA approval for at least one vaccine, one of the key concerns expressed by team members about efficacy and safety has been more fully addressed.
By the end of August 2021, nearly half of senior living & healthcare organizations across the country were requiring vaccinations of team members.
All team members (other than those approved for exemption due to medical or religious reasons) volunteers, and business partners working in our communities must receive the full vaccine series for the COVID-19 virus by Friday, October 1st.
Q: What about residents or team members who already had COVID-19? Do they need to be vaccinated?
A: Unvaccinated individuals who were previously infected with COVID-19 but did NOT get vaccinated were more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 as those who had the illness AND were fully vaccinated, according to a recent study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control.
What portions of residents are vaccinated? What about team members?
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid have begun publishing vaccination rates for nursing homes
https://data.cms.gov/covid-19/covid-19-nursing-home-data
See previous FAQs
