Great News: Only One Iowa Nursing Home Has An Active COVID Outbreak
While it may be weird to say this, thank goodness there's only one nursing home with multiple cases of COVID-19. As we sit now, we're 12 weeks into the COVID-19 vaccine being available in the US. During the first few weeks, only nursing home residents and health care workers could receive the vaccine. Now, as more and more Iowans are eligible, one thing has become apparent: it's working.
Radio Iowa reports the only nursing home in the state with multiple cases is Vista Wood Care Center in Wapello. They have 13 cases listed, though; in the past 14 days 11 of the 13 have already recovered from the virus. To qualify as an outbreak, a long-term care facility had to have three or more active cases. Meaning, if no other facility has at least three, cases in our nursing home have plummeted.
What makes this significant is, in Iowa we had a record 5,609 residents and/or staff that had the coronavirus on December 8, 2020 - with 167 different nursing homes factoring into the numbers. That means in just over three months, most of which we've had a vaccine, cases have gone down to levels. Wapello is in Louisa County, roughly 2 and a half hours south of Oelwein.
If you're going to receive your COVID-19 vaccine in the near future, check out some tips for what to do/not do shortly before and after you get vaccinated. And for answers to more common COVID-19 vax questions, please keep scrolling.
LOOK: Answers to 30 common COVID-19 vaccine questions
While much is still unknown about the coronavirus and the future, what is known is that the currently available vaccines have gone through all three trial phases and are safe and effective. It will be necessary for as many Americans as possible to be vaccinated in order to finally return to some level of pre-pandemic normalcy, and hopefully these 30 answers provided here will help readers get vaccinated as soon they are able.