More than 50,000 people at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have died from coronavirus in the U.S., a demographic that makes up more than 40% of total coronavirus deaths in the country, the Wall Street Journal reported.
There were more than 250,000 novel coronavirus infection cases among residents and staffers at long-term care facilities in the U.S., according to a Wall Street Journal tally. There are more than 116,000 coronavirus deaths in the U.S. according to John Hopkins University data, and more than 40% of those deaths were people in these facilities.
Nursing home workers hold a vigil outside of the Downtown Brooklyn Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on May 21, 2020 in the Brooklyn borough in New York City. Nursing home workers are advocating for hazard pay, better access to personal protective equipment and respect from their employers, said a representative from the Healthcare Workers Union. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Residents and staffers of long-term care facilities that house the elderly and vulnerable have been especially susceptible to complications from the virus, especially in states like New York where it was revealed that Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo had been ordering nursing homes and long-term care facilities to accept patients from hospitals who had tested positive for the coronavirus. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: New York Admits Knowingly Undercounting Nursing Home Deaths After Quietly Changing Reporting Rules)
Similarly in Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf insisted that elderly people infected with coronavirus be sent back to their nursing home, which may have contributed to the state’s large coronavirus death toll at nursing homes, where 68% of total deaths were at these facilities, and the average age of a coronavirus fatality was 80.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the cases in long-term care facilities is likely higher due to reporting lags and differences in how states report.
For example, New York did not include deaths of nursing home and adult-care-facility residents that occured at hospitals in their count of deaths at these facilities, rather, they included the numbers in the overall fatality data. This method effectively omits the number of individuals who contracted the virus while living at long-term care facilities but died in a hospital.