Federal officials relax guidance on nursing home visits, citing vaccines and slowing infections
Source: Washington Post
Federal health officials on Wednesday substantially relaxed the government’s guidelines for family and friends to see nursing home residents in person, saying that vaccinations and a slowing of coronavirus infections in the facilities warrant restoring indoor visits in most situations.
The nursing home guidance, the first federal advice on the subject since September, says “outdoor visitation is preferred,” even when a nursing home resident and family or friends are fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.
But acknowledging that weather or a resident’s poor health might make an outdoor visit impractical, the recommendations encourage nursing homes to permit indoor visits “at all times and for all residents,” regardless of whether people have been vaccinated, except in a few circumstances.
Federal officials say the exceptions include when a resident has not been fully immunized against the virus and lives at a home in which fewer than 70 percent of fellow residents are fully vaccinated and when the nursing home is in a community with high rates of local infections — more than 10 percent of tests being positive. Visitors are also discouraged from seeing residents who have covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, or are in quarantine after having been exposed to the virus.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-nursing-home-visits/2021/03/10/4214165a-81d4-11eb-9ca6-54e187ee4939_story.html
This is GREAT news!!!
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