Assisted living facilities wrap up first round of vaccinations, optimistic on more visitation

MINOT, N.D. – Now that many assisted living facilities in the state have residents and staff vaccinated against COVID-19, some are looking forward to the future.

Valley View Manor in Velva recently had residents and staff receive their first round of COVID-19 vaccinations.

And after almost 11 months of quarantine and isolation, the senior living manager hopes this is the step toward bringing loved ones back into the building at a higher capacity.

“The mental health aspect of folks in long-term care is something that we are very concerned about we want to be able to have visitors when possible we want to be able to have activities that are fun and engaging,” Emily Tescher Schmaltz said.

As a slightly larger facility than Valley View, The Wellington Assisted Living in Minot has had more strict visitation rules in place to keep residents and stafff safe, even when the state rolled back.

But, the community relations director at the Wellington shares the optimism.. in the sense of comfort residents will get from seeing their families again.

“We look forward to getting back to all of our daily activities and having ya know full families in here we do have limited visitation at this time, and we wanna move forward on that too we wanna get these people back together,” Renee Escherich said.