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ArchCare, the archdiocese’s health care system, last week began giving the Covid-19 vaccine to staff members and residents of its nursing homes across the archdiocese and ultimately hopes to dispense 4,000 vaccines.
“This vaccine is the key to ending this pandemic. We have to get vaccinated to make that happen,” said Scott LaRue, president and CEO, in a Dec. 22 phone interview with Catholic New York.
The day before, 600 staff members and residents of two ArchCare nursing homes in Manhattan, the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center and the Mary Manning Walsh Home, received their vaccinations. Also scheduled last week were employees and residents of Carmel Richmond Health Care and Rehabilitation Center on Staten Island. LaRue said there were plans for the vaccine to be dispensed at two other ArchCare facilities, Ferncliff Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in Rhinebeck and San Vicente de Paul Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center in the Bronx, by the end of December.
LaRue was part of an initial group of ArchCare employees to receive the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine a few days earlier. “I found the entire experience to be less intrusive than the flu shot,” he said. “I barely felt the needle.” The only side effect he reported was that his arm was slightly sore for about 18 hours after the shot.
Of the 600 individuals ArchCare vaccinated in the first round, LaRue said no one complained of a side effect “more meaningful than that.”
ArchCare facilities are receiving the Pfizer vaccine. Pharmscript, an institutional pharmacy that strictly services health care organizations like ArchCare, maintains custody of the vaccine and is responsible for “the cold chain” of extremely low temperatures in which the vaccine must be kept, LaRue said.
“The vaccines are never within our possession. The pharmacy sends vaccinators to the home to work alongside our clinical staff. They help with the vaccination process,” LaRue said.
While nursing home residents have given high rates of acceptance to the Covid-19 vaccine, LaRue said staff members have expressed more reluctance, which ArchCare plans to counter with education and encouragement.
“The vaccine is appropriate for every individual to take unless they have a history of a severe allergic reaction to a vaccine,” said LaRue, who added that “the trials and science” support the vaccine’s safety.
“Those are really the key points that you have to get across,” LaRue said.
With Christmas and New Year’s celebrations drawing families and friends together, LaRue expects “the second surge” of the coronavirus in New York to peak “around mid-January.”
LaRue said an “uptick” of Covid-19 cases has been detected at ArchCare facilities since the beginning of October. The increase has been largely due to employees contracting the coronavirus through exposure in their home communities, with rates generally rising in New York. Cases have been isolated in nature and quickly detected by the comprehensive testing measures ArchCare has in place, he said.
LaRue explained that ArchCare has devoted $2 million to ramping up technology for infection control and hiring “infection preventionists” at each of its facilities since April.
The health care system also brought in Dr. Mana Rao as chief medical officer for infection control.
Other measures ArchCare has taken include installing ultraviolet filters in each home’s duct systems for constant air disinfection; setting up thermal scan cameras at the entrance of each facility to accurately read temperatures; and establishing negative pressure rooms with HEPA filters to isolate infected patients.
“We’re in a much better position to be successful in handling the spread of the virus than…in the spring,” LaRue said.
He noted that ArchCare now has ample Covid-19 testing capacities and sufficient personal protective equipment on hand, a far cry from the pandemic’s early days when LaRue was forced to make personal online appeals in an attempt to secure any supplies he could locate.
ArchCare currently has a 60-day supply of PPE stocked in each of its nursing homes, with an additional 90-day supply for the entire system in a rented warehouse.
LaRue told CNY that he believes ArchCare’s facilities are prepared to weather the second surge of the virus “if things remain consistent with what we’re currently experiencing.”
“There isn’t another nursing home in the area that has invested the resources we have to ensure the safety of the people we serve as well as our staff,” LaRue said.
He said no residents in the ArchCare system who have contracted Covid-19 have died since July 2.
LaRue mentioned the lack of visitation privileges at nursing homes has created “an extraordinary burden” on residents, families and staff. There hasn’t been any new guidance about how the vaccines would modify current regulations.
“We’ve been encouraging the governor’s office to loosen the restrictions on visitation at this point. The restrictions do more harm than good,” he said.
LaRue said he believes the state is listening, citing a reduction in the number of days without a positive Covid-19 test for visitors to be allowed at a facility. The 14-day standard is “still too onerous,” he said.
“It’s a pretty steep hill to climb,” he said.
As LaRue watched ArchCare employees receive their vaccines last week, he said he felt some “real enthusiasm” in the room.
“It puts a date on the calendar when this is over,” he said. “There was a real sense of excitement. We can bring this pandemic to an end.
“Once we get everyone vaccinated, everyone is hoping that there is a return to relative normalcy again.”
