Every Assisted Living and Memory Care Community on Long Island and in the Greater NYC area is accepting new residents and have been for some time. Some are filling up, while others are offering special financial incentives for new residents. While choosing an Assisted Living or Memory Care community is an important decision for any family for reasons apart from money, I can help you find the communities that meet your needs and, in some cases, are offering a short term incentive.
Relative to COVID, Assisted Living and Memory Care communities on Long Island and in the Greater NYC area continue to be very cautious. Everyone remembers the devastation of the spring, and the Communities are rightfully being very careful about any resident exposure to COVID.
There are two types of opening for Communities - Internal and External.
Internal Opening allows residents to freely circulate, eat in the dining room, participate in activities, and generally be social with each other and with the staff. Most communities are now allowing some version of all these communal activities. They are making modifications, like having just a couple people per table at dining and limiting group exercises to just a few people, properly spaced out, but the main take away is that they are allowing residents to circulate and be with each other again. And in what is great news this internal socialization is not causing upticks in the positive rates within Assisted Living or Memory Care populations. Most communities are completely COVID free, and if a case does come up, they generally find it via testing, isolate the person, and stop the spread before it starts.
External Opening is a different issue. Most communities are allowing residents to visit with relatives in a carefully controlled fashion, outside. As cooler weather approaches, though, the visitation becomes more difficult to arrange. Some communities plan to allow limited visitation inside the building if windows are open during the visitation. Other communities are still planning but have no firm operational plan for visits inside the building. Still others are looking at high tech air filters, but it's unclear if these devices will meet state requirements. I'm cautiously optimistic that some form of visitation will be organized for the cooler and cold weather.
