ATLANTA — The number of people dying from COVID-19 in Georgia’s nursing homes continues to rise, while the number of COVID case numbers in nursing centers is now declining.
According to the CDC, COVID cases in Georgia nursing centers declined by 35% for the week ending Jan. 30th.
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But during that same week, 31 Georgians died of COVID in the state’s nursing centers -- the highest number in several months.
“Any one of those is a tragic event and we hate seeing that,” said Tony Marshall, president of the Georgia Health Care Association, which works on behalf of the state’s nursing centers.
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Marshall says the omicron variant also continues to cause a staffing crisis, with more than 6,000 nursing center workers needing to quarantine at some point in January.
“Given the size of our workforce, that is a significant workforce crisis,” said Marshall. “To be able to try to find individuals to fill in for those staff is very difficult.”
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Because of the staffing shortage, Marshall says nursing homes have not been able to accept some patients from hospitals -- putting extra burden on the hospitals as well.
He believes the number of deaths in nursing homes will decline in the coming weeks, as case numbers continue to drop.
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