Nontraditional nursing homes have almost no coronavirus cases. Why aren't they more widespread?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

This is from last November. It's a year old. I'm clearing out my email inbox.

Local

Nontraditional nursing homes have almost no coronavirus cases. Why aren’t they more widespread?

By Rebecca Tan
November 3, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Not a single resident has contracted the coronavirus at Goodwin House’s small residential facility in Northern Virginia, where about 80 seniors live in homey apartments and keep their own sleeping and meal schedules. There’s been just one case at the Woodlands at John Knox Village in Broward County, Fla., where all 140 residents live in private rooms and are cared for by nurses who earn enough not to take a second job.

These facilities, part of a national movement to create less-institutionalized long-term care, stand out in a pandemic that has killed more than 61,000 nursing home residents since March. At “Green House” homes, the best-known nontraditional model, residents are one-fifth as likely to get the coronavirus as those who live in typical nursing homes — and one-twentieth as likely to die of the disease it causes.

For Harvard-trained doctor Bill Thomas, who specializes in geriatrics, the contrast is bittersweet. ... He has spent two decades calling for the “abolition” of standard nursing homes in favor of the Green House model, which allows the elderly to live in groups of eight to 10 in settings that resemble homes rather than hospitals.

The model has been praised by academics and doctors and seems far better suited than traditional facilities to stave off the spread of infection and the isolation that has devastated the elderly in recent months. But it remains on the fringes of a $137 billion industry.

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By Rebecca Tan
Rebecca Tan is a reporter working on the local desk in D.C. She previously reported on foreign policy and international affairs for The Post and Vox.com. Twitter https://twitter.com/rebtanhs

[Quakerfriend]

1. It's all about the $

With Citizen's United and ever increasing de-regulation
the nursing homes are all about profits.

At will employment also serves to diminish the quality of staff they keep.