As North Carolina’s key metrics continue to remain stable and strong infection prevention and control requirements remain in place, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services issued a Secretarial Order on Monday updating visitation guidelines for nursing homes to allow indoor visitation.
“We have focused on protecting the health of nursing home residents since the start of this crisis. Our progress in testing, infection control and slowing the spread of COVID-19 in our communities allows us to move forward with safe indoor visitation in accordance with federal guidance,” said NCDHHS Secretary Mandy K. Cohen, M.D.
Indoor visitation will only be permitted in nursing homes with no COVID-19 cases in the last 14 days and in counties with a percent positive testing rate of less than 10%, reflecting guidance from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
The updated order reflects the state’s dimmer switch approach to responsibly ease restrictions while maintaining strong prevention measures. North Carolina continues to build on the early and aggressive actions it took to protect nursing home residents and staff. In addition to restricting visitation at the start of the pandemic, the state has provided personal protective equipment; helped fill staffing shortages; provided infection prevention and control training, support teams and targeted funding; mandated testing; and completed on-site infection control inspections of North Carolina’s more than 400 nursing homes.
Local community transmission levels are the key factor for nursing home outbreaks, emphasizing the importance of community-wide adoption of proven prevention practices (the 3 Ws). Facilities allowing in-person visitation will be required to follow strict infection prevention guidelines.
Throughout NCDHHS’s pandemic response, its five-point strategy for long-term care facilities has focused on prevention, staffing, testing, outbreak management and oversight. The department’s innovative universal testing strategy within skilled nursing facilities has been cited by the Rockefeller Foundation as a national model.
NC nears 3 million completed tests since pandemic started
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services on Monday reported 868 new COVID-19 cases across the state, bringing the total since March to 208,248.
The percent positive rate stands around 5.3%, stable with the numbers from recent weeks.
With 96% of hospitals reporting, there are currently 897 COVID-19 related hospitalizations throughout North Carolina, 20 fewer than on Sunday.
Throughout the state, 558 ICU beds and 6,064 inpatient beds are empty.
NCDHHS officials said Monday that an additional 24,121 tests were completed, bringing the total to 2,999,853.
Monday’s report also showed four more COVID-19-related deaths in the state.
>> Have questions about the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the Carolinas? We have an entire section dedicated to coverage of the outbreak -- CLICK HERE FOR MORE.
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[COUNTY-BY-COUNTY COVID-19 RESOURCE GUIDE]
[CORONAVIRUS IN THE CAROLINAS; HERE’S HOW TO STAY INFORMED]
Note: The numbers we show you every day mean everything in how our community recovers from coronavirus -- both in terms of healthcare and the economy -- but they don’t mean much without the proper context and as much transparency as possible.
New cases vary day by day based on a lot of factors. That can include how long it takes to get results back, so a new case reported today can really be several days old.
The other big metric we watch is the percent of positive cases. This is data we can only get from the state because it’s not as simple as factoring a percent of new cases each day from the number of tests. That’s because test results take days and come from a variety of places.
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