COVID-19 has devastated long-term care facilities and nursing homes in New Jersey and across the nation. In an effort to protect the lives of residents and staff at these facilities, the State has taken a number aggressive measures including:

• Curtailing visitation on March 14, 2020, and requiring screening for symptoms and temperature checks of all individuals who enter the facilities
• Developing a comprehensive testing plan for residents and staff; baseline testing was completed for all residents and staff at the end of May and retesting continues for residents and staff who have tested negative; as of August 10, 2020, more than 310,000 tests have been completed on residents and 495,000 tests for staff
• In partnership with the VA, universal baseline testing of all residents and staff has been completed at all three veterans memorial homes – Paramus, Menlo Park, and Vineland
• Increasing the personal protective equipment (PPE) available to these facilities; as of July 22, 2020, the State has distributed more than 30 million pieces of PPE to long term care facilities
• Allowing facilities to hire out-of-state, certified nurse aides to support staffing vacancies
• Enforcing mandatory notification of residents, families and staff of an outbreak in their facilities, and requiring universal masking
• Prohibiting admissions to facilities that could not cohort patients and staff
• Deploying New Jersey National Guard members to long-term care facilities to provide additional staffing and support
• Deploying VA clinical staff to help at our long-term care centers
• Requiring facilities to confirm mandated updates to their outbreak prevention plans
• Requiring all facilities that receive BinaxNOW tests and have a CLIA Certificate to test all staff and visitors as well as certain residents starting November 30 until December 14
• As of April 28, 2021, CVS and Walgreens completed their last rounds of vaccination clinics as part of the Federal Pharmacy Partnership for Long-Term Care (LTC) Program. Through this partnership, New Jersey administered over 145,000 doses to residents and over 127,000 doses to staff at nearly 1,200 long-term care facilities - including nursing homes, the State's three veterans memorial homes, federal senior housing, all five Developmental centers, and some I/DD group homes.
• Creating an easy-to-use employee communication toolkit with information to help long-term care employers and employees educate, inform, and raise awareness about COVID-19 vaccination.
• As of September 7, 2021, requiring all workers in long-term care and assisted-living facilities will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or be subject to COVID-19 testing at minimum one to two times per week.
• All workers in health care facilities and high-risk congregate settings will be required to be up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations, including having received a booster dose and will no longer be permitted to submit to testing as an alternative to vaccination, except for the purposes of providing an accommodation for individuals exempt from vaccination.

Governor Murphy has announced a series of recommendations and actions from Manatt Health's review of New Jersey's long-term centers to improve quality, safety, and resilience within New Jersey's long-term care system.

New Jersey has implemented several key recommendations from the Mannat report, including clearing more than 3,600 backlogged complaints, completing and publicly posting infection control surveys from nearly 470 facilities, and setting up a central Long-Term Care Emergency Operations Center.

The Governor has also signed a legislative package that enacts several other recommendations including wage enhancements for frontline staff, improved response coordination, and robust data reporting procedures -- as well as legislation that requires minimum direct care staff-to-resident ratios, policies to prevent social isolation of residents, and the establishment of the Special Task Force on Direct Care Workforce Retention and Recruitment.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health has announced a directive that establishes mandatory benchmarks, strong baseline infection-control measures, requirements for PPE stockpiling, and testing for residents and staff – including weekly coronavirus tests for all staff. For more details, refer to Executive Directive No. 20-026.

To support long-term care facilities, the Governor announced the State is preparing to commit a total of $155 million dollars in state and federal funds to bolster staff testing programs, increase wages, and meet the more-stringent criteria for reopening that are being put in place.

Furthermore, in response to the significant number of deaths and disturbing complaints about these facilities, on April 16th, 2020, the New Jersey Attorney General's Office opened an investigation into the state's long-term care facilities.

If you have first-hand knowledge of illegal activity or other misconduct at a nursing home or a long-term care facility during the COVID-19 outbreak, please fill out this online reporting form (covid19.nj.gov/ltc) from the New Jersey Attorney General's Office.

Source: Governor Murphy's Remarks 5/5/20; https://nj.gov/governor/news/news/562020/approved/20200506b.shtml; NJ Health Commissioner Persichilli's Remarks 5/20/20; Governor Murphy's Remarks 5/21/20; Commissioner Persichilli's Remarks 7/6/20; ; Commissioner Persichiili's Remarks 7/22/20; Governor Murphy's Remarks 8/10/20; Executive Directive No. 20-026; https://nj.gov/governor/news/news/562020/approved/20200916b.shtml; Governor Murphy's Remarks 3/22/21