California says AL/NH visitors must now be boostered AND have a recent test.

Getting an appointment for a certified test result now takes days in advance. There can ONLY be infrequent visitors because of test frequency. That is unfair to the loved ones and seniors who thrive because of more frequent social contact.

I'm popping back to clarify the testing requirement - nursing homes have had to hire dedicated staff to sit at the entrance and test. Due to the shortages of tests health care and congregate living settings are getting first dibs on all supplies of rapid tests.

Vaccinated and unvaccinated can spread covid as well as get covid. Testing means nothing because a person can text positive one day and negative the next day. I am sorry people have died from covid but that is not an excuse for all the fear porn we are being hit with on a daily basis.

Not to mention the media spin on children who had covid and were hospitalized who the CDC now admits that almost all of these children were hospitalized for something else and then tested positive for covid.

Covid treatment protocols in hospitals are killing people with remsidiver being a 50% killer. Then add in the vent and you see that percentage increase.

Never before have we seen so much propaganda surrounding a vaccine that does not seem to be protecting anyone from getting or spreading covid. A covid test that they now are creating new rules for asymptomatic people after telling us the opposite for 2 years. Just look at current protocols for quarantine to see there is no science behind any of it. Just dollar signs.

Vaccine manufacturers have no liability for deaths or injuries related to these vaccines so they are churning out even a booster for omicron tjat is supposed to be ready by March. Even though omnicron is not a lethal strain of covid. Why? Because there is billions to be made. In the mean time the media blackout on deaths and injuries from the vaccine is a disgusting breach of ethics.

Where is the public outrage for even one death because of the vaccine? Why is that acceptable but one death from covid isn't? Covid is not preventable as we see people who have been masking, social distancing, getting vacmccines and boosters still contraching it. Both vaxxed and unvaxxed have a 98% recovery rate.

Those with long haul covid may want to research the medications they were given to see if just maybe those are the cause of their long haul covid and not covid itself. I know my husband took antibiotics last fall and now has tinnitus as a side effect so i know all about medications causing lasting damage to a person.

We have been testing everyone who comes in the door for... a long time now, also staff must have 3 doses and test twice weekly too.
With omicron visits are once again restricted to two essential caregivers (since an essential caregiver includes those whose presence is valuable for the mental health of a resident that pretty much means anyone) unless the resident is palliative.
Essential caregivers must also now show proof of vaccination unless they have a valid medical exemption (very hard to get) or the resident is palliative.
(For you Americans palliative means imminently dying)

After the virus devastated long term care homes early in the pandemic our government promised to erect an "iron ring" around long term care. Is it overkill? Maybe, but the consequences of doing less are political suicide, not to mention even one more preventable death is one too many.

I live in California, and my mother was in a memory care here, AND she had Covid. She caught it in a rehab hospital, not in her place. She was isolated for two weeks after returning from the rehab place, then on her last day of isolation, she tested positive and was quarantined for another three weeks.

They did have an outbreak in her MC five months before Mom had it, and they did a good job of containing it. A couple of residents did die, but they were also in very bad shape already so I wasn't surprised.

However, I saw my mother in person on March 14, 2020 and didn't get to hug her again until March 20, 2021. (I did get to hold her hand when they sent her to the ER once in October 2020.) She couldn't see me through the window when I visited, and she wasn't good on the phone although I called frequently anyway.

That isolation did real damage to her and to all the other residents, especially because MC residents have no idea what Covid is. It damaged relationships, as my mother wasn't totally clear on who I was once I was able to see her again. I had put her on hospice care when she came back from the rehab place, and the hospice nurse let me come to assist her with Mom's wound care, so I was able to come into the MC when other family members still couldn't visit in person. I'm immensely grateful for that time with my mom, but I also resent that lost year that led to such confusion for her and accelerated her memory decline.

I didn't know any family members at that place who supported such draconian measures, but I also don't know if they could have done anything else. This time around, though, I think they need to tread carefully and make sure people aren't unnecessarily separated from their loved ones. It's very difficult to get a test around here, and there are spouses who visit every day. I'm not sure that requiring a test every time is realistic or fair.

I'm glad my mother is gone now and doesn't have to think she was abandoned again.

If you have either HAD a COVID infection yourself, OR have lost a Loved One to COVID OR have lived in a COVID “hot spot” for the last 2 + years, we can have a discussion, and perhaps find some points in common.

If you have not experienced COVID in your own life, or your opinion has been given to you by someone other than a specialist in a medical (epidemical/geriatric) field, you probably won’t be able to imagine that the management of this kind of human suffering is very much like MOST other aspects of caring for fragile elderly people- often devoid of “good solutions”, “happy endings” and perfect outcomes.

When my LO was infected in March of 2019, the IDENTIFIED carrier of HER ILLNESS was NON-SYMPTOMATIC until THREE DAYS after my LO became ill.

I, at age 76, gave up a full active year of my life before being infected by an UNKNOWN carrier. A year later I STILL HAVE “long haul” symptoms in spite of my efforts to stay safe.

If you HAVE had COVID, or an LO has, or you have LOST someone you love to it, you have my most sincere sympathy. If you HAVEN’T please try to reserve judgement. History may reveal FACTS that can clarify how this happened and why, and how it could have been handled differently for all of us.

A “stupid test” a "booster” “raising the bar”?

I had NIGHTMARES about not being able to hug her, tell her I loved her, not having the chance to laugh with her again, having her intubated or worse.

If her caregiver had been TESTED, she might have been spared weeks of suffering.

We ALL want what’s best for people whom we love, but some of us continue to express what we WANT without considering ALL the facts we need to get there.

Right?? They keep raising the bar over and over again. I can't wait until the madness ends either. It is putting so much strain on people. And ripping families apart (mine included, unfortunately).

To OP, it's no wonder that CA is requiring more and more of their residents. Also no wonder that people are leaving CA. It is so sad that people are basically being prohibited from seeing their LO in the facilities. It's bad for everyone.

Its never going to stop. How many boosters is it going to take? Fifty, one hundred? Can't wait till the government stops subsidizing these stupid tests. Then maybe the madness can end.