AARP COVID Dashboard Shows Improvement In Wyoming’s Nursing Homes

The latest edition of the AARP COVID-19 Dashboard showed substantial improvement in staff, and resident cases of COVID-19 inside the state's nursing homes over the four week period ending December 18, 2022. 

Wyoming’s nursing home COVID-19 resident ratio for the four-week period ending Dec. 18, was 7.27 cases per 100 residents, which is the eighth highest in the nation and up from November’s rate of 6.7 cases per 100 residents. Wyoming’s nursing home staff case rate was just over the national average at 4.8 confirmed cases per 100 residents. That led to 51% of Wyoming nursing homes self-reporting staff shortages. 

The good news is Wyoming’s rate of nursing home resident deaths due to COVID-19 dropped to .05 per 100 residents, placing Wyoming 11th in the nation and well under the national average of .10 deaths per 100 residents. That is a big change from the November stats, which listed Wyoming as having the highest number of nursing home resident deaths attributed to COVID-19 with .33 deaths per 100 residents or six deaths total among nursing home residents.

Wyoming wasn’t alone in seeing its COVID-19 rates increase. Going into Winter, COVID-19 Cases and Deaths across the nation rose for the second consecutive month, While vaccination rates remain stalled. rates of COVID-19 cases among nursing home residents and staff increased by more than 50% in the four weeks ending December 18, compared to the previous four weeks. COVID-19 deaths also increased for the second month in a row.

Vaccine uptake
Nationally, most Nursing Home Residents and Staff are Still not up to Date on Vaccinations Bivalent boosters, designed to protect against the Omicron variants as well as previous strains, have been available since September but utilization has been low.  As of mid-December, more than three months since the shots became available, fewer than half of nursing home residents (47%) and less than one quarter of health care staff (22%) were up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations.

Wyoming’s nursing home residents are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines at a rate higher (60.8%) than the national average of 47.5%. Wyoming nursing home staff is vaccinated at a rate of 23.1%.

For this Dashboard, “up to date” means someone has gotten the new bivalent booster or had a completed primary series of vaccines or previous booster within the past two months. These data points should not be compared month and month.

For more information on the dashboard, contact Tom Lacock at tlacock@aarp.org or 307-214-2071.