Read on Twitter
Lots of discussion about the need to go fast when vaccinating residents & staff in long-term care facilities. Why? Every day we delay puts older LTCF residents at risk. Case in point: Faster nursing home COVID vaccination process in West Virginia likely saved lives. 
West Virginia opted out of the federal LTC partnership program and received much (deserved) credit for being the first state to vaccinate its nursing home residents & staff. WV finished first round of nursing home vaccinations on Dec 28th. 2/ https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/west-virginia-nursing-home-vaccinations-nearing-completion/article_5415421f-83be-5458-9fc1-a85e4d34af5c.html
Did this faster vaccination matter? Let’s compare WV to another nearby, similarly sized state. The bordering state with the most similar number of nursing homes according to @KFF is Maryland (in 2019, WV had 123 NHs, MD had 202). 3/ https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/number-of-nursing-facilities/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D
We know that nursing home COVID cases are closely linked to cases in the surrounding community. Importantly, the community COVID case trends in MD & WV (from the NYT Covid Tracking Project) have been similar since Sept-Oct with most recent 14-day change nearly identical. 4/
Maryland has been behind West Virginia in vaccinating nursing home residents. First MD nursing home dose was administered on Dec 23rd ( https://governor.maryland.gov/2020/12/23/governor-hogan-marks-start-of-covid-19-vaccination-clinics-at-maryland-nursing-homes/). There have been complaints about slow nursing home vaccination process in MD. 5/ https://www.wypr.org/post/vaccine-rollout-remains-slow-maryland-nursing-homes
Ideally, I would have access to exact timing of vaccine clinics in WV & MD. CDC did not require nursing homes/pharmacies to make this information public (ugh!). Here is white paper that does use exact timing in comparing nursing homes from same county. 6/ https://twitter.com/DavidCGrabowski/status/1357422295350980618?s=20
Nursing home COVID cases/deaths were obtained from the CDC NHSN data. Data are reported weekly by facilities through Jan 31st. Of note, data are sometimes later updated by the facilities, so exact numbers may shift (especially for most recent week). 7/ https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/covid19/ltc-report-overview.html#anchor_1594393304
So what does the comparison of WV & MD show? Covid cases decreased sooner in WV for both nursing home residents & staff. Once again, WV finished first round of nursing home vaccinations on 12/28. Thus, we would expect a decline ~2 weeks later. That is what we see. 8/
What about fatalities? Decline in West Virginia nursing home resident COVID deaths occurred ahead of decline in Maryland. Since week of Jan 3rd where reported nursing home COVID deaths were roughly equal across the two states, deaths in WV have declined 70% versus 24% in MD. 9/
This analysis is suggestive. Lots going on in these two states & we don't currently have exact timing of WV & MD vaccine clinics. Nevertheless, I find these results very encouraging in supporting ideas that vaccine is making a difference AND the speed of process matters. 10/
Bottom line – faster nursing home vaccinations in West Virginia likely saved lives. Many states are still experiencing delays in vaccinating residents/staff in assisted living facilities & other congregate housing for older adults. Every day matters…every resident matters. END/
