• Nursing homes with COVID-19 cases to be named by end of May,

Things are on track for the public to soon get its first peek at the number of COVID-19 cases at specific nursing homes and personal care facilities where some of the most vulnerable people live.

Effective Friday, nursing homes were required to begin reporting COVID-19 cases to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Centers for

Medicare & Medicaid Services intends to publish the facility names and number of cases by the end of May at data.cms.gov, according to new federal guidance.

The reporting rule applies to all 15,000 nursing homes in the U.S.

Failure to comply could result in fines and other sanctions.

The CMS began requiring nursing homes to tell the CDC and families of residents about COVID-19 cases on April 19, then three weeks later issued an interim final rule that included public disclosure of the names of nursing homes.

“As nursing homes report this data to the CDC, we will be taking swift action and publicly posting this information so all Americans have access to accurate and timely information on COVID-19 in nursing homes,” the CMS said in a statement Friday.

Nursing homes long have been required to report cases of communicable diseases such as COVID-19 to the state or local health departments, but these agencies have not released the names of the affected facilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit nursing homes and other congregate living facilities especially hard, so the lack of disclosure has left families in the dark when choosing a facility or making health care decisions for a loved one.

The lack of public disclosure and government inaction frustrated Westmoreland County Coroner Ken Bacha, who said most COVID-19 deaths in the county were attributed to three nursing homes. He said he couldn’t name them because the deaths were not under his purview.

“It just boiled my blood that the department of health wasn’t doing anything,” he said during a virtual town hall meeting April 21 that was hosted by state Sen. Kim Ward, RHempfield.

Of the 3,616 COVID-19 deaths as of Friday in Pennsylvania as reported by the state Department of Health, 2,458 deaths — or 68% — were long-term care facility residents or staff.

The rate was higher still in Allegheny County, where 92 deaths, or 77% of the total 119 deaths, were people who lived or worked in longterm care facilities.