Douglas Motter: Pa.'s nursing home residents must get vaccines first

When is Pennsylvania going to complete vaccinating its most vulnerable citizens — nursing home residents?

The better question might be: When will many of our nursing homes even receive a date for vaccinations to begin? While some have begun vaccinating residents, others are hearing it might not be until late January or even February.

These are legitimate questions, because nursing homes are being kept in the dark, despite our residents being the most at risk — something everyone has known since the first days of the pandemic.

While many Pennsylvanians have only focused on the latest covid-19 surge that has led to scaled-back holiday celebrations and separation from our loved ones, the pandemic never left our nursing homes. For eight months, the risk of covid-19 has been constant for this very vulnerable population.

The facts are inescapable: Statewide, nursing home residents account for over half of all covid-19 deaths. This is a tragedy. Nursing home staff are fighting valiantly, but the combination of age, weakened immune systems and comorbidities of our residents has made the fight seem almost impossible at times.

Through all of this, and all of the months of struggle, we still have not seen a clear plan from the Wolf administration on how the newly approved vaccines will be distributed to nursing homes.

Meanwhile, for nearly two weeks we have seen constant media coverage of vaccines being delivered to hospitals all across Pennsylvania. That’s great. We certainly support this, but why doesn’t anyone seem to care that the Pennsylvanians with the greatest risk, number of cases and deaths — our cherished residents of nursing homes — are still waiting?

If the vaccine is effective, then vaccinating nursing home residents will immediately help Pennsylvania’s covid-19 fatality rate drop dramatically. The ultimate goal here is to save lives. So, why are we being forgotten? Why are our residents an afterthought?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognized this and clearly stated that nursing home residents are most at risk and should be among the first group vaccinated.

Government leaders in Ohio took the CDC recommendation to heart and prioritized the protection of nursing home residents first. Thus, Ohio prioritized vaccinating nursing home residents while Pennsylvania focused on hospital employees.

Let’s do some math: In Lancaster County, there were 132 deaths from covid-19 in just the first 20 days of December and, based on the historical percentages, it is likely more than half were from nursing homes and nearly all were older adults. Analyzing the math, the Wolf administration’s decision to vaccinate hospital employees first and delaying the vaccine to nursing homes could lead to 50 more deaths in just our county alone. Now think of how high the number of deaths will be statewide.

Who is making these life-or-death policy decisions for the Wolf administration?

The state’s covid-19 dashboard tells us the risk for hospital workers is infinitesimal by comparison. It’s remarkable how often we’re told by our state government to follow the science and CDC guidelines, while the state government itself is ignoring the recommendation that could literally save hundreds, if not thousands, of Pennsylvania lives.

Many nursing home residents may not receive the vaccine until four to six weeks after it was provided to hospital employees. Other vulnerable older adults — personal care home residents and seniors living independently across Pennsylvania — who are the most vulnerable, most likely to need hospitalization and most likely to die from covid-19, may have to wait weeks or even months longer.

This is an avoidable tragedy. Are not all the closures and restrictions about saving lives? How many lives could we save in Pennsylvania if the most vulnerable were vaccinated first?

Douglas Motter is president of Homestead Village in Lancaster.