Coronavirus cases and deaths in nursing homes across Wyoming have been steadily declining, according to a recent report from AARP Wyoming.
The number of nursing home deaths per 100 residents in the state saw a substantial drop, going from 2.22 per 100 residents from the four-week period ending Jan. 17 to 0.76 from the four-week period ending Feb. 14.
The nursing home resident infection rate per 100 residents also dropped from 10.4 cases from the four-week period ending Jan. 17 to 3.6 from the four-week period ending Feb. 14.
“The nursing home dashboard numbers are showing improvement across the board and we are pleased to see that,” said AARP Wyoming State Director Sam Shumway. “We are now starting to return to levels of infection and death rates we haven’t seen since last fall. We are optimistic that those trends continue.”
The coronavirus death rate in Wyoming nursing homes is the lowest since the four-week period ending Nov. 18, when the death rate was 0.25 per 100 residents.
For the first four measured four-week periods of the AARP Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard in 2021, there were no deaths in Wyoming nursing homes.
The death rate peaked at 2.95 deaths per 100 residents during the four-week period ending Nov. 15. That was one of the 10 highest ratios nationwide for a four-week period since AARP began reporting this information.
Other good news coming out of the latest dashboard snapshot included a large drop in coronavirus cases among nursing home staff, with the ratio dropping from 8.1 staff cases per 100 residents during the four-week period ending Jan. 17 to 3.8 staff cases per 100 residents in the latest four-week period ending Feb. 14.
The dashboard’s final two measures – percentage of facilities without at least a week’s worth of personal protective equipment (14%) and nursing homes with staffing shortages (25 %) both saw improvements as well over their previous snapshots and were at their lowest levels since last fall.
There have been 691 deaths among Wyoming residents since the pandemic began last March.
