An unvaccinated health worker caused a Covid-19 outbreak at a nursing home in Kentucky, where the vast majority of residents were vaccinated, leading to dozens of infections, including 22 cases among residents and employees who have already been fully vaccinated. Reported Wednesday.
Most of those infected with the coronavirus, despite the vaccination, did not develop symptoms or require hospitalization, but one vaccinated individual, who was a resident of the nursing home, died, according to the study by the Centers for Disease Control. and Prevention.
A total of 26 residents of the facility were infected, including 18 who were vaccinated, and 20 health care staff were infected, including four who were vaccinated. Two residents who were not vaccinated also died.
The report highlights the importance of vaccinating both residents of nursing homes and health workers going in and out of the sites, the authors said. While 90 percent of the 83 residents of the nursing home in Kentucky were vaccinated, only half of the 116 employees were vaccinated when the outbreak was identified in March this year.
The study, co-authored with one of Chicago nursing homes, highlighted the importance of maintaining measures such as the use of protective equipment, infection control protocols and routine testing, regardless of the level of vaccination. The emergence of virus variants has also caused concern.
According to the authors, a team of investigators from the CDC and Kentucky’s Department of Public Health said the resistance to vaccines nationwide is among staff in nursing homes nationwide, and the low acceptance rates of vaccination increase the likelihood of outbreaks in facilities.
“To protect competent residents of nursing homes, it is essential that health care providers, as well as competent residents of nursing homes, be vaccinated,” the authors of the study in Kentucky wrote.
The outbreak involves a variant of the virus with multiple mutations in the ear protein, of the kind that make the vaccines less effective. Vaccinations and health workers at the Kentucky Institution were less likely to be infected than those not yet vaccinated, and they were much less likely to develop symptoms. The study estimated that the vaccine, identified as Pfizer-BioNTech, showed efficacy of 66 percent for residents and 75.9 percent for employees, and that it was 86 to 87 percent effective in protecting against symptomatic diseases.
In the Kentucky outbreak, the virus variant is not on the CDC’s list of being considered variants of concern or interest. According to the authors of the study, the variant does have different mutations of importance: D614G, which provides evidence of increased transmissibility; E484K in the receptor binding domain of the vein protein, which is also seen in B.1.351, the variant first recognized in South Africa, and P.1. from Brazil; and W152L, which can reduce the effectiveness of neutralizing antibodies.
In Chicago, the routine examination of nursing home residents and staff members meanwhile identified 627 coronavirus infections in 78 skilled nursing homes in the city, but only 22 were found in individuals who had already been fully vaccinated. Two-thirds of the cases vaccinated were asymptomatic, the report found, but two residents were hospitalized and one died.
The authors of the Chicago study said their findings show that nursing homes should continue to follow recommended infection control practices, such as isolation and quarantine, the use of personal protective equipment, and routine testing, regardless of vaccination status.
They also stressed the importance of maintaining a high level of vaccination coverage among residents and staff members in order to provide an opportunity for the spread of facilities and exposure among persons who may not have achieved protective immunity after vaccination. “