It will soon be time for many family reunions at the St. Luke’s University Health Network residential facilities including Miners Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Coaldale.

The health network announced Thursday that due to relaxed guidelines from the state, it can again allow visitation on a limited basis.

“It’s time to welcome back family and friends to connect in person with our nursing center residents,” said Wendy Lazo, president of the St. Luke’s Miners Campus. “We’ll be managing that by appointment so we can have a handle on how many people are visiting at one time.”

Long-term residents at the facility have been offered a COVID-19 vaccine, and 94% of them have accepted.

Resident Arlene Breiner is thrilled to be able to spend in-person time with her son Perry.

“I’ve missed him over the past few months,” Arlene said. “Now we can get together and play games. It’s wonderful.”

Perry visited his mother Thursday and said the moment has been “a long time coming.” He also said the five-star quality rating recently achieved by the Miners Nursing Center was well-earned.

“This place is incredible,” he said. “I’ve been able to sleep at night knowing my mother was taken care of. I’m able to come in now and show her pictures on the phone from the holidays that I couldn’t before. It’s great.”

Previously, residential facilities in a county with a higher than 10% COVID-19 positivity rate could not allow visitors, and facilities with an outbreak also had to shut down to those on the outside.

“With the relaxed guidelines, the state has removed that 10% positivity rate restriction, and if a facility has an outbreak and is able to block off and contain it to that certain part of the building, it is able to keep those other areas open,” Lazo said.

Guidelines have also been relaxed in the hospitals themselves, where up to three visitors are now allowed to see a patient at a time.

St. Luke’s officials said vaccination clinics have been running smoothly and they, along with relaxed visitation restrictions, provide a ray of light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel.

David Gibson, vice president of the St. Luke’s Miners and Lehighton campuses, said clinic staffers have been working around the clock to ensure every vaccine dose received ends up in someone’s arm.

“Miners is one of 11 campuses where we are administering the vaccine, and we’ve had over 8,000 people who have either received at least one dose or are scheduled here,” Gibson said.

Feedback from the public, he added, has been tremendous.

“The network as a whole has the ability to give about 5,000 shots a day, and I think we’ve been incredibly efficient,” Gibson said.

Gibson also touted the network’s Monoclonal Antibody Treatment Clinic.

Granted emergency authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, monoclonal antibodies block the virus’s attachment and entry into human cells. Infusion has been found to be particularly effective in preventing the need for hospitalization in select, higher-risk patients, including those who are 65 years of age or older and whose infection, identified early, does not yet require supplemental oxygen.

“At our Miners antibody clinic, we have been able to treat 16 COVID-19 patients,” Gibson said. “We’re proud to bring that cutting-edge treatment to our local patients and we’ve seen great success in lowering symptom duration and severity.”

St. Luke’s has administered 160,000 vaccinations across the network including, according to Dr. Justin Binstead, medical director of the emergency department at Miners, 13,000 this week alone.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we still do advise social distancing and masking,” Binstead said.

As for when people in phase 1B may become eligible to receive the vaccine, that question is still up in the air.

“It really depends on the amount of vaccine available,” Binstead said.

Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam signed an updated order earlier this week making March 31 the date by which all vaccine providers should have Phase 1A-eligible Pennsylvanians’ vaccine appointments scheduled.