Low Nursing Home Staff Vaccination Rates Reflected In Latest Nursing Home Dashboard

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AARP’s COVID-19 Nursing Home Dashboard suggests significant staffing shortages in Wyoming’s nursing homes as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

The 54.3% of Wyoming nursing homes now reporting a staffing shortage over the four-week period ending Sept. 19, was much higher than the 39.4% of nursing homes reporting staffing shortages in the previous four weeks. Just five states in the nation - Alaska (66%), Washington (63.9%), Maine (61%), and Minnesota (57%) - have higher reported nursing home staffing shortage numbers. Of those Wyoming nursing homes reporting staffing shortages, 51% are short of aides, and 42% are short of nurses.

Wyoming nursing homes remain low in the numbers of staff who are vaccinated, with just 54.3% of staff fully vaccinated. This places Wyoming nearly last  (45th) in terms of nursing home staff  vaccination rates across the country. Those low vaccination numbers led to 88% of all Wyoming nursing homes reporting confirmed staff COVID-19  cases in the last four weeks, well above the national average of 61%. 

Resident Cases and deaths

According to the dashboard, Wyoming saw 45 cases of COVID-19 among nursing home residents, or a ratio of 2.29 cases per 100 nursing home residents over the four-week period ending Sept. 19, just above the national average of 1.8. West Virginia has the nation’s highest rate of nursing home resident cases with more than six resident cases per 100 The District of Columbia and North Dakota have the nation’s lowest rate of resident cases as .35 and .36 respectively.

Wyoming nursing homes saw two COVID-19 deaths in the four week period ending Sept. 19, up from zero over the previous four week period. In all, there have been 218 nursing home deaths attributed to COVID-19 in Wyoming nursing homes since June of 2020.

Wyoming has an 89.3% vaccination rate among its nursing home residents. That is well above the national rate of 84%.

National Trends

According to AARP’s COVID-19 Nursing Home Dashboard, nursing home resident deaths from COVID-19 have doubled since the last dashboard release, with more than 2,000 lives lost in nursing homes from mid-August to mid-September. The rate of new staff and resident cases also increased. Residents who were not fully vaccinated were twice as likely to be infected as those who are. 

The dashboard alsom saw modest increases in vaccination rates with 85% of nursing home residents and 67% of staff fully vaccinated as of Sept. 19. That is up from 84% and 64% in mid-August. More than half of nursing home staff is now vaccinated in every state. Nursing home staffing shortages are also up 3% nationally for the second month, with 29% of nursing homes no indicating a shortage of nurses or aides. 

About the Dashboard

The AARP Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard analyzes federally reported data in four-week periods going back to June 1, 2020. Using this data, the AARP Public Policy Institute, in collaboration with the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Ohio, created the dashboard to provide snapshots of the virus' infiltration into nursing homes and impact on nursing home residents and staff, with the goal of identifying specific areas of concern at the national and state levels in a timely manner.

The full Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard is available at www.aarp.org/nursinghomedashboard, and an AARP story about this month's data is available here. For more information on how COVID is impacting nursing homes and AARP's advocacy on this issue, visit www.aarp.org/nursinghomes.