State health leaders say without a second booster, senior citizens face a critical COVID infection risk.
State health leaders say without a second booster, senior citizens face a critical COVID infection risk.
In his Monday COVID-19 briefing, Gov. Jim justice said if vaccinated people have gone past the time to get a second booster, they basically have no immunity at all.
Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh agreed, saying the current omicron variant is better able to avoid all immune responses, and a second booster is critical for seniors.
“We’re working with the Long Term Care Association to make sure that we are continuing to define anybody who does need a vaccine to offer that to them,” Marsh said. “This is extremely important because the older part of our population is taking the brunt.”
West Virginia Joint Interagency Task Force Director Jim Hoyer said his team is renewing education efforts for nursing home residents to get their second booster and family members not granting consent to give the shot.
“We’re providing materials to go to family members who have the legal power to make decisions for other residents who are in facilities,” Hoyer said.
Hoyer said the booster education efforts would not just be in those facilities, but across the state population over the age of 50.
On Monday, the DHHR reported 80 new COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care facilities. As of Monday, West Virginia is just 23 away from 7,000 COVID-19 related deaths.
The toll on West Virginia’s older population during the coronavirus pandemic kept mounting with the reported deaths Thursday of nine senior citizens from six different counties.
One of the deadliest days yet during the virus outbreak pushed the number of deaths statewide to 199, an increase of 71% this month alone. West Virginia began the month of August with 116 deaths.
The deaths reported Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Resources included three residents of Logan County, two from Monroe County and one apiece from Clay, Fayette, Kanawha and Mercer counties.
The deaths were reported a day after West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice made yet another plea for residents to wear masks, keep their distances and self-quarantine upon returning from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a favorite vacation destination.
“We have got to be more careful for our elderly,” Justice said Wednesday.
The virus usually results in only mild to moderate symptoms, but is particularly dangerous for the elderly and people with other health problems.
West Virginia has the nation’s third-oldest population with nearly 20% of its 1.8 million residents over age 65.
The percentage of West Virginia adults aged 60 and older is growing more rapidly than any other part of the population. And most of them, like 91-year-old Paige Omohundro, want to stay home as they age.
Omohundro has lived in her modest two-story brick home for 54 years and wants to stay as long as possible. But she can barely handle steps these days — which is a big problem because once you get into her home you HAVE to climb stairs. The front door opens onto a small landing leading onto a split staircase. She said she’s thought about buying a stairlift, but would have to buy two — one for each side — and they’re expensive, costing more than one grand, sometimes several thousand, apiece.
“I just don’t go downstairs very much,” she said. “I go when I have to — my laundry room is down there. Usually when my daughter comes over, she’ll carry my laundry down for me or bring it back up, so that’s a big help.”
But staying in her home is vital to her sense of well-being.
“I guess I’ve always been independent, and I do not want to go into a nursing home or anything like that unless I absolutely have to,” she said. “You lose [independence] when you have to go live in assisted living or a nursing home and that would be hard for me.”
But is staying home the best option for older adults? Well, we actually don’t know.
A 2017 review of aging-in-place literature in the journal Social Work Research found that there isn’t much analytical research about whether aging-in-place is better than, say, moving to a retirement community and adapting. Another review published in 2017 found the same.
Anecdotally…it depends.
“Philosophically, it’s a question about balancing independence or autonomy and safety,” said Ginnie Prater, a geriatrician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Prater said older adults like Paige often want to stay home, while their families want to move them to a facility, citing safety concerns.
“In general, if a person is able to care for themselves or arrange for an alternative — say, family members or neighbors who can come and check on them, or even pay sitter services, especially if they’re not required around the clock, just intermittently — those often are better choices than going to a long-term care arrangement,” Prater said.
But whether or not independence outweighs safety often comes down to resources, Prater added.
“If someone has enough resources, they can set up essentially a nursing home in their own home,” she said.
But most people don’t have those kind of resources, especially in Appalachia.There are some state resources to help, but the percentage of West Virginians aged 60 and older is growing faster than any other portion of the population. It’s a silver tsunami that may be already cresting. And yet, amidst the drug epidemic and foster care crisis, no one is really paying attention to it.
Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.
Billy Hobby’s days are largely filled by two things: church and pool.
“I play everyday, mostly,” Hobby said, sitting next to his wife, Barbara.
“Well, I enjoy watching him play,” Barbara Hobby said. “He’s got health problems, can’t go out of town and play all the time.”
Billy and Barbara were in Cadiz, Kentucky, about 20 miles from their home in Princeton so that the 86-year-old pool player could compete in a weekly tournament.
Local senior Glenn Harrold had come to play as well. He said the tournaments are filled with folks his age, many who have limited mobility or who deal with health issues such as Parkinson’s disease and cancer treatments.
“You watch some of these gentlemen walk around the table and you see the short steps that they take, it takes them a long time. But when they get over the table they shoot some fantastic shots.” Harrold said it’s an activity that keeps seniors active in competition and fellowship.
“It’s something they look forward to.”
You wouldn’t know immediately that Hobby has Parkinson’s disease. But as he explained his confusion over a recent dispute about the pool tournaments, his increasing tremor reflected his unease.
“You can come to the tournament down here, or Hoptown either one. And that’s what we don’t understand, is how they can keep having tournaments here and we can’t,” he said.
The senior center in Hobby’s town has banned the pool tournament over a dispute about tournament fees, raising questions about who calls the shots on activities at senior centers, and how much say senior citizens have in decisions on things important to them.
PACS Management
“It’s managed by the same management, you know, PACS,” Hobby said of the senior centers around the region.
Hobby is referring to Pennyrile Allied Community Services, known locally as PACS. The group manages the senior centers in the area, including Hobby’s center in Princeton, where pool tournaments were banned.
PACS Executive Director Harold Monroe said that his group provided more than 130,000 meals to seniors last year and transported seniors from nine counties more than 2.5 million miles to places they needed to go.
“So we are more than just a senior citizen pool playing service provider, ” Monroe chuckled.
The Older Americans Act provides funding to area management groups like PACS to fulfill part of the Act’s mission “to promote the dignity of older adults by providing services…that enable them to remain independent.”
There are more than 2.7 million seniors in the Ohio Valley. As this aging community grows so does the lack of control many feel over many aspects of their lives. From transportation to health care, many seniors lose autonomy — even over their choices in recreation.
“Seniors often struggle to maintain an identity later in life,” Cassity-Caywood said. A lack of control over decision making affects an older person’s sense of independence.
“For emotional well-being it’s important, and it’s important for our social work ethics, that we try and maintain and preserve the individual’s sense of empowerment as much as possible,” she said.
But PACS director Monroe said local centers have the choice to decide whether or not seniors are consulted about changes affecting services.
“First of all, they don’t have any input in the decision making because they’re not in a position of authority, ownership, whatsoever,” Monroe said. “If we make a decision to sell a coffeepot, that’s our decision to make as the providers of that service. ”
Tournament Turmoil
Which brings us back to the pool tournament. Jill Giordano chairs the Senior Aging Council for Princeton and voted to ban pool tournaments at the center. She said the tournaments were cancelled partially because the pool players were charging a fee to play.
“Well, that’s not appropriate,” she said. “We are federal and state funded and we don’t provide services people have to pay for. More importantly, we have seniors, they don’t have two dollars to play pool.”
But the Princeton players tell a different story.
Credit Nicole Erwin / Ohio Valley Resource
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Ohio Valley Resource
Some of the players in the Princeton pool tournament.
“It’s been very sad,” Lewis Gray said. Gray used to play in the Princeton tournament. Gray said they removed the monthly tournament fee after a notice from the senior center.
“Well, that affected the morale of the gentleman first all because they were afraid they were going to lose something that they love,” he said.
Still, Gray said the board did away with the tournament and several pool tables, leaving just one in a central part of the center.
“So that the director could keep an eye on us,” he said. “She treats the old people very much like they’re children.”
“A democracy”
Dennis Amundson, another senior Princeton pool player, said the group “was blindsided.” He feels seniors should have more say in a system that is supposed to support them.
“This is a democracy,” he said. “When it affects probably close to a majority of the folks that use the center on a daily basis, I’d say I’ve got a problem with that.”
Advisory Council Chair Giordano said seniors can still play pool, its just in a smaller room with only one table.
The seniors say that isn’t good enough. The players would have to draw straws to play with those limitations. Giordano says the decision is final.
Still, Billy Hobby is holding out for a better resolution.
“It helps me get out the door and go and it’s something I enjoy doing,” he said. “I just hope it’s settled one of these days and we can all get back to our normal days.”
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey says he has formed a new unit and a hotline to fight elder abuse.
Morrisey said in a statement that the civil litigation unit will be dedicated to holding accountable anyone who abuses, exploits or neglects senior citizens. He said the unit will use a new hotline, email address and scam alert database to connect seniors with services.
The statement says West Virginia’s senior population has grown to nearly 19 percent and the unit will use all resources available “to protect the most vulnerable among us.”
He said the new unit will focus on enforcing consumer protection laws and will help seniors with legal needs such as preneed funeral contracts.
Those in need can reach out by phone at 304-558-1155 or through email at HelpForSeniors@wvago.gov.
