coronavirus vaccine

CT Nursing Homes, Assisted Living Facilities to See Vaccine as Early as Dec. 21

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Connecticut’s hardest-hit community is starting to circle the calendar for the day they’ll receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

“We have every evidence that this is coming together,” Matthew Barrett, president and CEO of the Connecticut Association of Healthcare Facilities and Connecticut Center for Assisted Living, said.

Barrett said some of the state’s 213 nursing homes are now scheduling their COVID-19 vaccine clinic visits with CVS Health and Walgreens. The administration could begin between some time between Dec. 21 and 28.

“I think the indication would be the first shot across the system would be done within a week across the entire system,” Barrett said.

The focus now is getting written consent from 23,000 nursing home residents and as many staff members ahead of the rollout.

“It’s a massive undertaking but we think we can get it done,” Barrett said.

“Right now, the plan calls for a CVS team to come to the building and administer the vaccine with the assistance of our team,” Tim Brown with Athena Healthcare Systems said.

Brown said he expects consent forms to be provided by CVS Health in the next two to three days. At least one of Athena’s facilities is set to see the vaccine as early as Dec. 22.

“The plan is to go room to room to administer the vaccine to residents, our staff will be vaccinated more in a clinical-like setting within our setting within the same day,” Brown said.

Brown said he anticipates each facility will be administering the vaccine within a day.

Nursing home leaders said they’ll spend the remaining days and weeks leading up to that roll out getting those consent forms completed and those dates set for the vaccine administration.

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