seniors COVID-19 AND THE JEWISH
ELDERLY
Nursing-home admins keep up the battle against the coronavirus while they work to improve their in-house responses and close care of patients BY HEATHER ROBINSON | jns.org A staff member at a senior facility run by the Jewish Association on Aging in Pittsburgh, PA caring for a resident.
Jewish nursing-home administrators in Miami, Pittsburgh and New York discussed how they have coped and are still coping, in addition to the lessons learned and efforts to protect the elderly going forward. One decision they noted was a March 25 mandate by the New York State Department of Health requiring nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients considered to be “medically stable” after being discharged from a hospital, unless facilities could demonstrate that they were unprepared to do so. The order did not require these patients to be tested for COVID-19; in fact, it explicitly said not to. Gov. Andrew Cuomo later rescinded the order, but not before much damage was done, with the virus spreading rapidly among the elderly. States have learned much since then, particularly New York, which flattened its curve before the summer started. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also listed guidelines including mask-wearing, social distancing and handwashing/hygiene care. It also reported, as of July 13, a total of 3,296,599 cases of COVID-19 with 134,884 related deaths in the United States. MIAMI (FLORIDA)
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s America’s battle with the novel coronavirus has raged America’s Jewish community has suffered its share of losses, particularly early on when COVID-19 swept through the boroughs of New York City and Upstate New York. No age group has been as widely affected as the elderly, making nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and senior residences ground zero in the battle against the virus, at least at first. While other states in the Northeast — Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — were also hit hard at the beginning of the pandemic in March and April, cases of infection lessened significantly after months of social distancing and lockdowns. Once thought that the virus would subside as the weather warmed in late spring and summer, that did not happen, and now, swaths of the U.S. South are seeing daily infection rates that rival the worst days in New York City. 26
L’CHAIM SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE • AUGUST 2020
Governor: Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) Statewide Mask Mandate: Not required Cases Citywide (Miami-Dade County): 67,712 Cases Statewide: 282,000 Deaths Citywide: 1,143 Deaths Statewide: 4,276 Height of Cases: July 12 (15,000 new cases) Miami Jewish Health is comprised of a 370-bed nursing home, an assisted-living facility that is home to 80, and an independent-living facility for 60. It is the largest nursing home in Southeast Florida, according to president and CEO Jeffrey Freimark. The system has had 57 COVID-19 cases since early March, with 10 residents having died as a result of complications from the virus. “We mourn, but the majority of the folks ... have returned to their home units fully recovered and in good health ... most of that return has been in recent weeks,” said Freimark. In its assisted-living facility, two residents contracted COVID-19,
