05.10.2021

Capturing Pandemic Lessons Learned for Local Health Departments and Long-Term Care Facilities

As with much of our pre-pandemic reality, the relationship between local health departments and long-term care facilities appears in retrospect to have been tranquil and routine. Each year, local health departments offered influenza vaccine supplies to long-term care facilities and provided support for reportable communicable disease investigations as needed. That relationship was upended with the advent in March 2020 of an expanding COVID-19 pandemic that would soon bring suffering and death to long-term care facilities. For local health departments, rapid resource reallocation and improvisation became imperative.

Links: GeriPal (4/2021)