22% of MD’s cases and 50% of the deaths are in nursing homes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Except it IS community spread, and workers there can and do spread the infection outside of their workplace and into the community, including hospitals, other nursing homes, group homes, and prisons... all places with people highly likely to catch it, and perhaps die from it.

No. It’s not. Treat nursing home workers totally differently. You can isolate them until this is over. We need a strong public health response to this. This is NOT the same as general community spread.

You don’t think nursing home workers have families, go to the grocery store, pick up kids from school, etc? They’re also low wage workers and are likely to supplement with gig economy jobs like instacart....

This is the definition of community spread!

Nope. Staff represent 1550 cases and 8 deaths. Very low fatality rate.

Plus you can isolate them. All it takes is some planning by the government and monitoring of that population.

Eight deaths out of 1550 cases is a very high death rate of 0.5%. The death rate for the flu is 0.01%.

Yes, 8/1550 cases is high, and combined with the high infection rate, this is a dangerous virus. And actually, the death rate for the flu is usually LESS than 0.01. And a lot of the flu death statistics are just based on estimates rather than confirmed deaths. The flu doesn't lead to overwhelmed ERs, refrigerated trucks for storing bodies, morgues being overwhelmed, etc. People are ridiculous in saying that COVID has a low fatality rate.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because it’s such a high turnover and hard job and they need to meet staffing 24/7 even when people are sick or don’t show many facilities rely on agencies to fill openings or gaps and those agency workers go to multiple places.

My father lived in a skilled nursing unit at a local, “fancy” nursing home for nearly 4 years.

Very common to hire a “private duty” aide (a CNA) to simply “sit with” (a common term) a skilled nursing care resident. Ugly truth is that the few nurses on staff are all business and overworked and underpaid. Yes, a nurse is available but otherwise, the skilled nursing resident just sits or lies down alone, in maybe a shared room for hours. Call buttons are ignored.

Learned quickly that to guard against negligence, you have to supplement care. These are unlicensed,
independent caregivers and they typically approach family members, hoping to be hired.

Its only common for rich parents like yours. Most are on medicaid in some nursing homes and no one has a private duty nurse.

My point was to illustrate that there are lots of unregulated, unmonitored freelancers in and out of nursing homes. This is a potentially dangerous situation, especially since these caregivers are paid under the table and still attempt to come in even under a lockdown situation. They become part of the family.
I happen to know that some of these caregivers slip in before or after hours to help residents bathe or grab their laundry. Often the private duty aides are hired when you first move to independent living, then they stay with you through until the end.

So they are "sneaking in" to help residents bathe, do their laundry, maybe sit and chat with them. They enhance the care given to the resident and lighten the load of the onsite staff. This to you is a problem? Do you also hate it when family members sit by their loved one's bedside at the hospital?

My grandmother lives in independent living (she's still mobile and healthy, just old, and this is her preference) and has an aide that comes about 4 times a week for a few hours at a time, to help with things like laundry, driving her to the doctor and grocery shopping, and making sure she gets in and out of the shower safely. She really likes her aide and treats her more like family (takes her to lunch, etc.) and they have been together for a long time. Aide took care of my grandfather when he was very sick, too. She speaks my grandparents' first language, which is a huge plus.

If she does move to another situation (either in-home care by nurses or a nursing home/assisted living setting), we will still definitely try to hire her aide as a private caregiver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Except it IS community spread, and workers there can and do spread the infection outside of their workplace and into the community, including hospitals, other nursing homes, group homes, and prisons... all places with people highly likely to catch it, and perhaps die from it.

No. It’s not. Treat nursing home workers totally differently. You can isolate them until this is over. We need a strong public health response to this. This is NOT the same as general community spread.

You don’t think nursing home workers have families, go to the grocery store, pick up kids from school, etc? They’re also low wage workers and are likely to supplement with gig economy jobs like instacart....

This is the definition of community spread!

Nope. Staff represent 1550 cases and 8 deaths. Very low fatality rate.

Plus you can isolate them. All it takes is some planning by the government and monitoring of that population.

Eight deaths out of 1550 cases is a very high death rate of 0.5%. The death rate for the flu is 0.01%.

Yes, 8/1550 cases is high, and combined with the high infection rate, this is a dangerous virus. And actually, the death rate for the flu is usually LESS than 0.01. And a lot of the flu death statistics are just based on estimates rather than confirmed deaths. The flu doesn't lead to overwhelmed ERs, refrigerated trucks for storing bodies, morgues being overwhelmed, etc. People are ridiculous in saying that COVID has a low fatality rate.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

I don’t disagree that this a dangerous virus. I do disagree about the characterization of the death rate as very high. Relative to the flu yes, but objectively no

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Except it IS community spread, and workers there can and do spread the infection outside of their workplace and into the community, including hospitals, other nursing homes, group homes, and prisons... all places with people highly likely to catch it, and perhaps die from it.

No. It’s not. Treat nursing home workers totally differently. You can isolate them until this is over. We need a strong public health response to this. This is NOT the same as general community spread.

You don’t think nursing home workers have families, go to the grocery store, pick up kids from school, etc? They’re also low wage workers and are likely to supplement with gig economy jobs like instacart....

This is the definition of community spread!

Nope. Staff represent 1550 cases and 8 deaths. Very low fatality rate.

Plus you can isolate them. All it takes is some planning by the government and monitoring of that population.

Eight deaths out of 1550 cases is a very high death rate of 0.5%. The death rate for the flu is 0.01%.

Yes, 8/1550 cases is high, and combined with the high infection rate, this is a dangerous virus. And actually, the death rate for the flu is usually LESS than 0.01. And a lot of the flu death statistics are just based on estimates rather than confirmed deaths. The flu doesn't lead to overwhelmed ERs, refrigerated trucks for storing bodies, morgues being overwhelmed, etc. People are ridiculous in saying that COVID has a low fatality rate.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

The death rate from the flu is not .01% but .1%
https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html

In short, COVID-19 has a IRL death rate five times higher than the regular flu. Which isn't good news, but the good news is that it's only .5%. For a virus that we were told was going to kill 4-5% of our population this is great news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Except it IS community spread, and workers there can and do spread the infection outside of their workplace and into the community, including hospitals, other nursing homes, group homes, and prisons... all places with people highly likely to catch it, and perhaps die from it.

No. It’s not. Treat nursing home workers totally differently. You can isolate them until this is over. We need a strong public health response to this. This is NOT the same as general community spread.

You don’t think nursing home workers have families, go to the grocery store, pick up kids from school, etc? They’re also low wage workers and are likely to supplement with gig economy jobs like instacart....

This is the definition of community spread!

Nope. Staff represent 1550 cases and 8 deaths. Very low fatality rate.

Plus you can isolate them. All it takes is some planning by the government and monitoring of that population.

Eight deaths out of 1550 cases is a very high death rate of 0.5%. The death rate for the flu is 0.01%.

Yes, 8/1550 cases is high, and combined with the high infection rate, this is a dangerous virus. And actually, the death rate for the flu is usually LESS than 0.01. And a lot of the flu death statistics are just based on estimates rather than confirmed deaths. The flu doesn't lead to overwhelmed ERs, refrigerated trucks for storing bodies, morgues being overwhelmed, etc. People are ridiculous in saying that COVID has a low fatality rate.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/

The death rate from the flu is not .01% but .1%
https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-compare-with-flu.html

In short, COVID-19 has a IRL death rate five times higher than the regular flu. Which isn't good news, but the good news is that it's only .5%. For a virus that we were told was going to kill 4-5% of our population this is great news.

I'm the one who posted that number. Considering the reported overall fatality rate for MD is around 4%, nursing home workers having a 0.3% fatality rate is quite good, especially given the likelihood that they are being exposed to high viral loads from infected residents.

That's what I meant when I characterized it as low.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because it’s such a high turnover and hard job and they need to meet staffing 24/7 even when people are sick or don’t show many facilities rely on agencies to fill openings or gaps and those agency workers go to multiple places.

My father lived in a skilled nursing unit at a local, “fancy” nursing home for nearly 4 years.

Very common to hire a “private duty” aide (a CNA) to simply “sit with” (a common term) a skilled nursing care resident. Ugly truth is that the few nurses on staff are all business and overworked and underpaid. Yes, a nurse is available but otherwise, the skilled nursing resident just sits or lies down alone, in maybe a shared room for hours. Call buttons are ignored.

Learned quickly that to guard against negligence, you have to supplement care. These are unlicensed,
independent caregivers and they typically approach family members, hoping to be hired.

Its only common for rich parents like yours. Most are on medicaid in some nursing homes and no one has a private duty nurse.

My point was to illustrate that there are lots of unregulated, unmonitored freelancers in and out of nursing homes. This is a potentially dangerous situation, especially since these caregivers are paid under the table and still attempt to come in even under a lockdown situation. They become part of the family.
I happen to know that some of these caregivers slip in before or after hours to help residents bathe or grab their laundry. Often the private duty aides are hired when you first move to independent living, then they stay with you through until the end.

So they are "sneaking in" to help residents bathe, do their laundry, maybe sit and chat with them. They enhance the care given to the resident and lighten the load of the onsite staff. This to you is a problem? Do you also hate it when family members sit by their loved one's bedside at the hospital?

My grandmother lives in independent living (she's still mobile and healthy, just old, and this is her preference) and has an aide that comes about 4 times a week for a few hours at a time, to help with things like laundry, driving her to the doctor and grocery shopping, and making sure she gets in and out of the shower safely. She really likes her aide and treats her more like family (takes her to lunch, etc.) and they have been together for a long time. Aide took care of my grandfather when he was very sick, too. She speaks my grandparents' first language, which is a huge plus.

If she does move to another situation (either in-home care by nurses or a nursing home/assisted living setting), we will still definitely try to hire her aide as a private caregiver.

I have seen that sort of arrangement in Independent Living and I think it is a good solution for those residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My point was to illustrate that there are lots of unregulated, unmonitored freelancers in and out of nursing homes. This is a potentially dangerous situation, especially since these caregivers are paid under the table and still attempt to come in even under a lockdown situation. They become part of the family.
I happen to know that some of these caregivers slip in before or after hours to help residents bathe or grab their laundry. Often the private duty aides are hired when you first move to independent living, then they stay with you through until the end.

You really don't know what you are talking about. There are no visiting hours in nursing homes. They are required by regulation to allow visitors 24/7. They can limit now due to the state of emergency. But, under normal circumstances, visitors must be allowed anytime. But you are right that people who can afford them sometimes do get private duty caregivers to come in. They are not necessarily unmonitored though. If they pose a risk to the resident or others, they are not permitted in.

Also, at the time when nursing homes put into place Covid-19 precautions, one of those was to eliminate all visitors, including private duty staff. Only if a resident is at end of life can they get a visitor and even then, only one. Front desks are highly regulated to keep people out.

PP and I am well versed in nursing home operations Theee grandparents and a parent in four different facilities. . As I’m sure you are aware, different facilities have different levels of security and monitoring.
My father’s nursing home, for instance had a gated guard shack and you’d be admitted there but there was not and is not an inside front desk. My visits were never monitored nor were my father’s private duty caregiver’s.

[Anonymous]

We should not be destroying so many livelihoods for this. Anyone who wishes to is free to stay home as long as they’d like. Others need to be free to earn a living. Nursing home residents should not drive public policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We need higher wages for those who work with the elderly, but also more use of technology and robots.

Because that is what seniors need: Even less contact with humans.

It is with bitter irony that I post this:

Thank you for posting this. It is beautiful and tore at my soul. I am most disappointed in how so many in our country are happy to treat these people as disposable. They did their part for our country and we should do ours for them. Remember a day will come when you are old too.

I think that these people should be able to enjoy dining with their friends and that they should be able to enjoy group activities again. I also think that they should be able to visit with their families. Because life is short and no one should die all alone in a hospital, have their body stored in a freezer truck, knowing that their family members won't even be able to give them a proper funeral.

The sick should be quarantined. The well should be able to live. That is my opinion based on the facts.

Depending on the person, most get to the point they cannot socialize and are kept in a group as its easier on staff, not the resident. Family and friends are a huge issue if they bring in the virus. You clearly are clueless about nursing care. Many people die alone. And, what do you think happens to the bodies.

Of course it depends on the person. FWIW, my own dad spent his last years in a locked Alzheimer's unit. We visited him regularly, we were there with him when he passed away and we gave him a proper funeral. That, of course, was well before the Coronavirus.

As far as family and friends being a huge issue for bringing this virus into these facilities...I actually kind of doubt that. The people that I know who care enough about their elderly relatives to visit them are not the kind of people who would be careless and cavalier about bringing a virus like this into an eldercare facility. At the same time, the residents are going in/out of the facility enough that there is always going to be the risk that the virus can be brought into the facility. If the risk is there anyway (and it is a significant risk) you might as well allow visitors, too. Maybe have all visits take place in the resident's room or in some outdoor location or wherever else is practical.

You've got to weigh keeping them safe with allowing them to enjoy the best quality of life possible. Self isolating might be prudent in the short term scenarios but that is no way to live.

You don't know what another family member or friend will do. Its very easy for them to carry in/out the virus. You are really minimizing it. Its very risky to let outside people in.

That's great you were able to do a "proper" funeral. We had no money so we had to settle for a cremation, cheap burial space (which was lovely) and a few family as her family were to crummy to come out or help in any way.

I don't know why you are arguing with me or why you would assume that my dad was not cremated (he was). It sounds as though you laid your loved one to rest just as we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We should not be destroying so many livelihoods for this. Anyone who wishes to is free to stay home as long as they’d like. Others need to be free to earn a living. Nursing home residents should not drive public policy.

The elderly are not driving public policy. Good lord no. And there is so much disdain about LTCs coming out of LEFT field that it's enough to make your head spin. The elderly are being used as an EXCUSE for these overreaching bans and orders. You think they give a sh*t about old people? Ha. No.

This is more about having the power to restrict the freedoms of all Americans.

LTCs will figure out how to keep their residents as safe as possible and they will do it in a compassionate way as they have throughout this nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We should not be destroying so many livelihoods for this. Anyone who wishes to is free to stay home as long as they’d like. Others need to be free to earn a living. Nursing home residents should not drive public policy.

Where do people like you come from? What went wrong growing up?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should not be destroying so many livelihoods for this. Anyone who wishes to is free to stay home as long as they’d like. Others need to be free to earn a living. Nursing home residents should not drive public policy.

Where do people like you come from? What went wrong growing up?

Honey, I don't know who you are or your thought process, but 30 million unemployed in the last six weeks is the damage done.

I do think care for nursing home staff should be part of public policy, but not the sole factor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should not be destroying so many livelihoods for this. Anyone who wishes to is free to stay home as long as they’d like. Others need to be free to earn a living. Nursing home residents should not drive public policy.

The elderly are not driving public policy. Good lord no. And there is so much disdain about LTCs coming out of LEFT field that it's enough to make your head spin. The elderly are being used as an EXCUSE for these overreaching bans and orders. You think they give a sh*t about old people? Ha. No.

This is more about having the power to restrict the freedoms of all Americans.

LTCs will figure out how to keep their residents as safe as possible and they will do it in a compassionate way as they have throughout this nightmare.

Are you kidding me? These facility providers don't give 2 shts about the residents or the workers.

Also, the MD Dept of Health doesn't care, either. They were pressuring nursing homes to keep the COVID data private: https://wjla.com/news/local/maryland-dept-of-health-pressures-counties-to-stop-releasing-nursing-home-covid-19-data

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should not be destroying so many livelihoods for this. Anyone who wishes to is free to stay home as long as they’d like. Others need to be free to earn a living. Nursing home residents should not drive public policy.

Where do people like you come from? What went wrong growing up?

Oh, get off your high horse. People shouldn't be walking around with their teeth falling out of their heads because they can't see the dentist and people absolutely need to be able to make a living.

Stop using the elderly as your excuse to continue these draconian measures. You are fooling no one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We should not be destroying so many livelihoods for this. Anyone who wishes to is free to stay home as long as they’d like. Others need to be free to earn a living. Nursing home residents should not drive public policy.

The elderly are not driving public policy. Good lord no. And there is so much disdain about LTCs coming out of LEFT field that it's enough to make your head spin. The elderly are being used as an EXCUSE for these overreaching bans and orders. You think they give a sh*t about old people? Ha. No.

This is more about having the power to restrict the freedoms of all Americans.

LTCs will figure out how to keep their residents as safe as possible and they will do it in a compassionate way as they have throughout this nightmare.

Are you kidding me? These facility providers don't give 2 shts about the residents or the workers.

Also, the MD Dept of Health doesn't care, either. They were pressuring nursing homes to keep the COVID data private: https://wjla.com/news/local/maryland-dept-of-health-pressures-counties-to-stop-releasing-nursing-home-covid-19-data

Sure. LTCs make HUGE profits when their residents die and their staff get sick. Big $$$$ in that!!!

Try to use your head.