Families desperate to visit loved ones in California nursing homes finally may see some relief after state health officials recently released updated guidelines allowing indoor visits in 46 counties, with some caveats.
Indoor visits will now be allowed at nursing homes in the 46 counties currently in California’s red, orange and yellow tiers, which have lower levels of virus transmission than the remaining 12 “purple” counties. Visitors must be screened for fever and COVID-19 symptoms, wear masks and wash hands upon entering the facility. Among other requirements, homes must have had no COVID-19 cases in residents and staff for the past 14 days. But county health officers retain the power to ban indoor visits if they think local conditions are too dangerous.
The California Association of Health Facilities welcomes the new guidance, said Deborah Pacyna, a spokeswoman for the nursing home industry group, in an email. “Family visits are incredibly important for the health and well-being of residents.”
“We all wish the federal guidance would follow the science; that hasn’t necessarily been the case,” Wasserman said. “The state is really trying hard to integrate science into its guidance. Protecting residents at the expense of harming them through isolation is the balance we have to strike.”
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