The study showed that 90 percent of current COVID patients’ rooms contained identifiable coronavirus on at minimum one object. The virus could have been detected on some surfaces days later, particularly TV game controllers and nurse call buttons.
A Coronavirus Study Found In Nursing Home Patient’s Rooms
Although it is almost certain that COVID-19 spreads from exposure to respiratory coronavirus, a recent study has found something intriguing. It is possible for the surface to be another medium spreading COVID-19 around people. This was observed near the patient’s bed in a nursing homeroom.
The most noticeable characteristic of this virus is it stays alive and active on different surfaces for a longer period. This has made the experts worried and drove them to carry out various drives to find the place of the virus. As a result, they have found the presence of this virus in the Nursing home and that too in the patient’s room which can infect not only the new patient who is brought to the concerned place but also the nursing staff that takes care of various patients struggling with different medical conditions.
The study also discovered that the virus was infrequent or non-detectable on surfaces outside of COVID patients’ rooms, which is likely due to the COVID units’ strict infection prevention practices. Researchers from the University of Michigan conducted the study in four Michigan care homes during October 2020 as well as January 2021, at a period when the state had a significant increase in instances.
Overall, coronavirus RNA was found in 28 percent of the greater than 2,000 specimens gathered from inside and surrounding the beds of 104 COVID patients. The scientists did not test the viruses just on the swab to see if they could cause an infection, but it can assist in identifying dirty surfaces and guide infection prevention measures.
“These data show that coronavirus is ubiquitous and persistent in the rooms of nursing home residents with COVID-19, and highlight the ongoing importance of rigorous cleaning and protection of staff and visitors,” said Lona Mody, M.D., M.Sc., the study’s first author and leader of nursing home infection prevention research at Michigan Medicine’s Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine as well as VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
To perform the study, she collaborated with Emily Martin, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, as well as members of their teams and the employees of the four nursing facilities. Nursing home residents made for one-third of those who died from COVID-19 in the United States, mostly in the initial months of the epidemic.
For the tests, every individual who was diagnosed with COVID-19 was identified and monitored in a separate room. In the previous months, almost one out of four people have been in hospital, raising the query of COVID-19 being spread through surface mobility.
Despite high vaccination rates among nursing home residents and increasing vaccination rates among nursing professionals, the risk of unvaccinated patients, staff, and visitors, as well as the risk of outbreaks amongst severely ill recently hospitalized and frail senior residents, remain high.
And over half of the patients were suffering from dementia. The majority required substantial assistance in bathing, dressing, and eating. Half of the patients were short-term residents of the nursing home, and about a third had left by February.
The more independently the patients could move and operate, the more likely it was that objects including beds and TV remote controls, nurse call buttons, windowsills, and doorknobs were infected with the persistent coronavirus. Only a few positive swabs were found near the COVID units in the seating, nurses’ stations, and elevator buttons.
