Iowa Veterans Home showing worst nursing home outbreak in state

At least 307 residents and workers in Iowa nursing homes have been infected with COVID-19 as a result of current, ongoing outbreaks in 25 care facilities — a 9 percent decrease from two weeks ago when there were 333 infections tied to 32 active nursing home outbreaks.

The biggest area of concern continues to be the one nursing home that’s run by the state: the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshall County. In the past two weeks, the number of infections associated with the current outbreak in the facility has increased from 37 to 64. No other facility in the state has that many infections tied to a current outbreak.

This is the sixth COVID-19 outbreak at the Iowa Veterans Home, which is the highest number of outbreaks at any care facility in the state. The five previous outbreaks at the facility resulted in 146 infections.

According to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, seven residents of the veterans’ home have now died of COVID-19, which is one more than the six deaths reported two weeks ago. Just under 72 percent of the facility’s staff have been vaccinated, an increase of 1 percentage point over the past month.

Federal data shows the total number of Iowa nursing home residents infected during the 2020-21 pandemic now stands at 12,124, which is an increase of 175 from the 11,949 reported two weeks ago.

A total of 2,483 Iowa nursing home residents have died of the virus, which is an increase of 24 from the 2,459 deaths reported two weeks ago.

According to the federal government, 31 percent of the workers in Iowa nursing homes remain unvaccinated against the virus — a decrease from the 34 percent reported two weeks ago.

Gov. Kim Reynolds has opposed requiring workers in either state-run or private care facilities to be vaccinated against COVID-19. On Aug. 18, the Biden administration issued a vaccine mandate for workers at all of the nation’s 15,000 nursing homes that collect Medicare or Medicaid funding. The administration has said it intends to cut off that funding for any home that fails to comply.

In response to an open records law request, the Iowa Department of Public Health earlier this week disclosed that as of Oct. 18, these 25 care facilities in Iowa were dealing with a current, active outbreak of COVID-19:

(Because the department no longer discloses the start date of outbreaks, it’s no longer possible to say how long many of the current outbreaks have remained active. Where that information is known, it’s reported below.)

This article initially appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.