A Concord assisted living facility is in the throes of a deadly coronavirus outbreak that has infected nearly 70% of those living there, despite the fact that all residents have been vaccinated.
At The Birches at Concord, 30 of the facility’s 43 residents and nine staff members tested positive for COVID-19, as of Tuesday afternoon. Seventeen of the residents have since recovered while three of the residents have died.
Though the assisted living community does not accept Medicaid dollars and therefor does not fall under the purview of federal vaccine mandates, a spokesperson for the nursing home said more than 90% of staff are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. The Birches also began requiring weekly COVID-19 testing in early August, as the county’s infection rate began climbing.
David Levesque, a spokesperson for the facility’s parent company, Benchmark Communities, said the nursing home isn’t certain how the outbreak originated.
“Ever since the pandemic began, experts have struggled to pinpoint exactly how the virus enters certain environments,” he said. “We have worked very hard to protect our residents, while informing our families and employees about how best to stay safe and mitigate the spread of the virus.”
The vaccine’s protections against hospitalization wanes over time, especially among those older than 65. The Food and Drug Administration approved booster shots in late September for older adults to boost the immune system’s response to the Delta variant.
Residents of the Birches have not received booster shots yet, Levesque said. The booster vaccine clinic is scheduled for Nov. 15. where residents who tested negative for COVID-19 will be eligible for a shot.
Benchmark Communities is a Massachusetts-based senior living company, which primarily cares for residents with dementia and other memory impairment.
There are fifteen other long-term care facilities in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak, the NH Department of Health and Human Services announced last week.