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Public Health increases access to booster at nursing facilities

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With increased circulation of the more infectious BA.2 subvariant, the County Department of Public Health (Public Health) is ramping up efforts to ensure access to the second booster dose for residents and staff at skilled nursing facilities.

In order to be sure that eligible nursing home residents and staff are quickly offered the second booster doses, Public Health is conducting educational outreach to all skilled nursing facilities in LA County to determine that they are able to offer second doses whether through their relationship with a long-term care pharmacy or through the Public Health mobile teams.

Public Health has already scheduled 23 mobile vaccination clinics at skilled nursing facilities to administer second booster doses over the next two weeks.

As of April 3, 91 percent of nursing home residents were fully vaccinated and 85 percent fully vaccinated and boosted with the first booster dose. Among eligible staff, vaccination rates are also very high with 98 percent fully vaccinated and 85 percent fully vaccinated and boosted.

With high rates of up-to-date vaccinations, positive cases among skilled nursing facility residents and staff remain relatively low.  For the week ending April 9, skilled nursing facilities reported 12 new cases among residents and 19 new cases among staff. This represents a 78 percent and 21 percent reduction in new cases, respectively, when compared to one month ago when there were 55 new cases among residents and 24 new cases among staff for the week ending March 12.

With skilled nursing facilities continuing to follow safety precautions, outbreaks have also remained low. There were just four new outbreaks reported the week ending April 9.

Visitors at skilled nursing facilities should still follow all sensible protection measures when visiting their loved ones. Visitors who are feeling sick should stay home, away from others, and not enter a facility.

Visitors wishing to go indoors should also be ready to show proof of being up to date with COVID vaccines and a negative PCR test result taken within two days prior to entry, or a negative antigen test result taken within one day prior to entry.

At midweek, Public Health had reported 13 additional deaths and 795 new positive cases of COVID-19. Of the 13 new deaths reported, two people were between the ages of 30-49, four people were between the ages of 50-64, three people were between the ages of 65-79, and four people were aged 80 years or older.

Public Health has reported a total of 2,847,097 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County. To date, the total number of deaths in LA County is 31,819. The current rate is 1.0 percent.

More details at http://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov.

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