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VISITS AND VACCINE HESITANCY The federal government asked the country's 15,000-plus nursing homes to loosen visitation restrictions in March. Citing widespread vaccinations of

residents, drops in COVID-19 infections among residents and staff, and the tolls of separation and isolation on residents and their families, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid

Services (CMS) said facilities should allow indoor visits “regardless of vaccination status of the resident or the visitor." The resulting uptick in visitors could, in part, be

contributing to the halt in COVID-19 declines, according to Jennifer Schrack, an associate professor in the epidemiology of aging at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in

Baltimore. "Every visitor is another potential exposure, particularly those who are not vaccinated,” she says. “They have to really consider carefully if they're going to visit

their loved one, and if they do, they should wear [personal protective equipment] and be very cautious, even if their loved one is vaccinated. … Low risk doesn't mean no risk.”

Unvaccinated staff, which could represent nearly half of the nursing home and assisting living workforce, may be an even bigger factor. "I think we've reached the threshold where

most of the staff who wanted to be vaccinated are,” Schrack says. “The vaccination rate is still going up, but at a much, much slower rate than it was earlier this year, which aligns with

this sort of steady state we're seeing." Staff members have close contact with residents around the clock — bathing, dressing and feeding them — which means more potential exposure

than from visitors. Additionally, at least a fifth of all nursing homes nationwide have reported a shortage of nurses or aides every month for the past year, according to AARP's new

analysis, which raises the COVID-19 threat further. When facilities are short-staffed, workers are assigned more residents to care for, which can increase spread of the virus if a worker is

unknowingly infected. The CMS is slated to release official vaccination data for the nation's nursing homes this month. It released a memo in May that requires all facilities to offer

COVID-19 vaccines to all residents and staff and to publicly report vaccination rates.