The state of New York this week released data showing an additional 1,600 deaths at nursing homes due to the coronavirus that were previously undisclosed.
As of Sunday, 4,813 people had died of the virus at nursing homes in the state, the New York Times reported, accounting for under a quarter of all fatalities from COVID-19 in New York so far.
David C. Grabowski, who studies nursing homes at Harvard University, told the New York Times that by the time the pandemic has run its course in America, nursing home deaths will account for about half of all coronavirus fatalities nationwide.
“It’s in good facilities and in bad facilities,” Grabowski said.
More than 16,000 residents and staff at nursing homes had died of the virus as of Friday, according to data compiled and analyzed by USA Today.
“Our profession has been sounding the alarm for weeks and weeks, but we have largely been forgotten by the public health sector,” said Mark Parkinson, the CEO of the National Center for Assisted Living. “If we are not made a top priority, this situation will get worse with the most vulnerable in our society being lost.”
The federal government has no system tracking nursing home cases and fatalities, but some especially hard-hit states have been slowly releasing data on nursing home deaths since the outbreak began.
In Connecticut, for example, nearly 90% of all deaths from COVID-19 were in nursing homes between April 22 and April 29.
“We’re really worried about this group, and one of the major things we need to do is protect them,” Dr. Albert Ko, an epidemiologist at Yale University, told the Hartford Courant. “But this virus blows up like wildfire in the facilities and is hard to contain.”
State health officials say about 60% of all coronavirus deaths in Connecticut have been in nursing homes. In neighboring Rhode Island, that total is nearly 70%. In New Jersey, the percentage sits at more than half. Nursing home deaths in Massachusetts account for nearly 60% of the state’s total.
Conservative lawyer Daniel Horowitz found in an analysis published Wednesday that several state governors failed to secure the most vulnerable elderly populations properly, and data from nursing homes have inflated the overall coronavirus case and death figures in some states.
“When you go through the data, it becomes clear that not only are more than half the deaths in most states from long-term senior care facilities, but the percentage of deaths nursing homes compose is growing rapidly every day,” Horowitz concluded. “It is, therefore, quite obvious why the deaths continue to grow in large numbers, even as the hospitalizations plummet. The majority of the new deaths are increasingly coming from nursing homes, and many of the patients die in the facilities, not in a hospital.”
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo took heavy criticism after mandating that nursing homes in the state accept residents who had been diagnosed with or are suspected to have had the coronavirus.
After a spike in nursing home deaths that followed, Cuomo blamed the greed of nursing home companies.
“Whatever reason they want, they call the Department of Health and say, ‘You take Bernadette. I can’t handle her.’ And the Department of Health takes [her]. Now, when the Department of Health takes Bernadette, they no longer get paid for Bernadette. Oh! Money,” Cuomo said.
In Oregon, state officials this week shuttered a Portland nursing home after 28 people died during an outbreak there.
Officials said the facility “demonstrated a consistent inability to adhere to basic infection control standards,” according to The Oregonian.
More than 1 million cases of the coronavirus have been reported in the United States as of Wednesday, and more than 70,000 people across the country have died.
