Can nursing homes dedicated to virus patients stop spread?

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A few states may have found a way to help slow the spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes by converting some of them into “recovery centers” set aside mostly for residents who have left the hospital but still might be contagious or lack immunity.

Critics worry about harming frail, elderly residents by transferring them to make room in repurposed nursing homes. But some public health experts and advocates see potential in combating further infection and freeing up hospital space, and many relatives embrace the concept as a way to protect their loved ones.

Debra Ellis agonizes over whether to bring her 87-year-old wife home if a coronavirus case appears in her nursing home, which currently isn’t reporting any. Ellis lives in Meriden, Connecticut, a state where three of nine planned nursing homes set aside for recuperating COVID-19 patients opened this month.

“It's terrible, the anxiety, you almost feel like they’re sitting ducks,” Ellis said.

While nursing homes routinely isolate residents who have an infectious illness, such as the flu, advocates see the more dramatic idea of setting aside an entire facility as necessary, given how easily and fast the coronavirus can spread.

“You can’t stop it. Once it gets in, then it’s going to run its way through the facility,” said Charlene Harrington, a professor emeritus of nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, and an expert in the risks of transferring elderly COVID-19 patients.

“So that’s why we want the COVID-only facilities set up and have the hospitals test patients. And if they have the virus, send them to the COVID-only facility,” said Harrington, who would like to see California set up such homes.

The idea has been introduced in some other states,...