Pa., Valley facilities had some of nation’s top death tolls, data shows
Six of the 10 long-term care facilities with the most COVID19 deaths nationwide are in Pennsylvania, including two in the Lehigh Valley, according to data recently updated by the New York Times.
The Times — which first published the data earlier in the year and is refreshing numbers on its website as they are confirmed with state, county and facility officials — last updated the report Dec. 4.
It shows the Lehigh Valley’s two county-run facilities, Lehigh County’s Cedarbrook in South Whitehall Township and Northampton County’s Gracedale in Upper Nazareth Township, are on the national list. The nursing homes, both among the largest in the state, have had 81 and 76 deaths, respectively, since the pandemic began.
State Health Department officials attributed the outbreaks at facilities around the state to a direct link — in terms of the virus — between what is happening in a community and in a facility in that community. But current and former state senators said the data shows Pennsylvania made mistakes in its efforts to control virus spread.
Democratic state Sen. Lisa Boscola of Northampton County said the state should not have ordered nursing homes to accept recovering COVID-19 patients.
“Wehave known for some time that the results are devastating when COVID gets into nursing homes,” Boscola said. “Clearly one of the biggest mistakes made at the outset of this pandemic was sending COVID-positive people back into these facilities.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Justice Department sent letters to the governors of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Michigan, seeking data on whether they violated federal law by ordering public nursing homes to accept recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals — actions that have been criticized for potentially fueling the spread of the virus.
Prosecutors said the fact-finding letters were aimed at determining whether the orders “may have resulted in the deaths of thousands of elderly nursing home residents.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for an update on the case Monday.
Republican state Sen. Mario Scavello of Monroe County said the data did not surprise him.
“They did not protect the nursing homes, but not only that, they also put COVID patients into the nursing homes,” Scavello said.
Andrew Dinniman, a Chester County Democrat who retired last month from the state Senate after more than 14 years, said the data shows “we should have focused our concern on where the most deaths were taking place, which was senior homes and long-term care facilities, instead of restaurants and businesses.”
The latest Pennsylvania data on long-term care facility deaths indicates the same number of deaths as the New York Times data for four of the facilities among the 10 with the most deaths.
For a fifth facility, the Pennsylvania data shows one more death than the Times data.
Those five are Fair Acres Geriatric Center in Delaware County with 95 deaths, currently ranked at the top of the NewYork Times’ national list; Cedarbrook with 81 deaths; Conestoga View Nursing & Rehabilitation in Lancaster County with 77 deaths; Gracedale with 76 deaths; and Brighton Rehabilitation & Wellness in Beaver County with 73 deaths.
The death total for the sixth Pennsylvania facility among the 10 ranked highest by the Times was far different than the total in the state’s latest data.
State data also shows Cedarbrook’s campus in Fountain Hill has logged 24 deaths.
Pennsylvania Health Department spokesperson April Hutcheson said Pennsylvania has one of the oldest populations in the nation; that data reporting can vary state to state and even facility to facility; and, since a major resurgence of the virus is underway, the state has no time to compare itself to others.
“In the aftermath of all of this, there is going to be uniformity of reporting, which may not be happening now,” she said.
Department spokesperson Nate Wardle added, “We know that COVID-19 has been introduced into facilities through the staff who provide diligent work
at the facility, but also must go home.”
Slightly less than 60% of the state’s 12,620 COVID-19-related deaths have been at long-term
care facilities. For the Lehigh Valley, the figure is about 75%.
Jennifer Stewart-King, administrator at Gracedale, noted the 688-bed facility is the largest under one roof in the state. And, she said, many of deaths attributed to the virus early on were among people already dying from other causes.
The lack of knowledge about a “new” virus meant government guidance changed frequently. For instance, guidance originally called for staffers to wear masks only in resident rooms but not in halls and common areas.
Cedarbrook has about 473 beds at its South Whitehall Township location.
In an email, administrator Jason Cumello said it is tough to compare larger homes with smaller ones. And, he said, the Lehigh Valley was hit hard early in the pandemic when little was known about handling the virus.
Beyond that, Cumello said, equipment and virus testing were not readily available.
As was the case at Gracedale, many COVID-19 deaths at Cedarbrook involved people who “were in fact in the end stages of other disease processes,” Cumello said.
Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure said Pennsylvania has a “robust” reporting regimen and said it was possible other states did not, meaning data would not be comparable.
Stewart-King and Lehigh County Executive Phillips Armstrong said both homes have significant numbers of dementia patients.
Those patients, Stewart-King said, are more challenged by the disease. She said they often do not cover their mouth and nose when they sneeze, they may refuse to wear a mask, and attempts to keep them behind a plastic barrier may fail.
Neither Lehigh Valley facility has had a COVID-19 death in several months.