CARE

The statewide picture may also be incomplete. The Associated Press reported Monday that about 20 percent of the nation’s nursing homes have not provided required case and death data to the federal government, which began collecting the information last month.

A letter from federal authorities to the nation’s governors — a copy of which was provided to the news service — showed more than 60,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 26,000 deaths among U.S. nursing home residents since the pandemic began. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also told the governors it will increase monetary penalties for facilities that fail to comply with infection-control requirements, the AP reported.

Large outbreaks have been responsible for dozens of deaths in long-term care facilities in Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough and Polk counties.

The reasons behind the uneven impact are unclear, though they may be a matter of timing. Kristen Knapp, director of communications for the Florida Health Care Association — a trade group representing most of the state’s 701 nursing homes — said early infections were likely spread by asymptomatic carriers before health officials shut down visitation and before nursing homes had access to widespread testing or personal protective equipment, or PPE.

“At that point, we didn’t have the amount of tests we do now … and we were in dire need of PPE,” Knapp said. “We still have an ongoing need for PPE, especially with gowns, though certainly we have better access to masks.”

With assistance from the

Florida National Guard and the state Department of Health, the facilities aim to have every longterm care resident and employee tested within two weeks, Knapp said, although some facilities have already done so on their own.

But those results will give the public only a one-time snapshot of how many people have the virus, Knapp acknowledged, since testing negative one day doesn’t preclude a person from testing positive the next.

Some advocates have called for rapid-results testing whenever anyone enters a long-term care facility — whether it be a new resident, an employee coming to work each day or a visitor — but industry representatives claim the cost would be prohibitive.

An analysis last month by the American Health Care Association, representing the national nursing home industry, and the National Center for Assisted

Living said it would run over $43 million for a single test of the 289,000 long-term care residents and employees in Florida alone.

“It’s $150 per test kit,” Knapp said. “That’s a significant investment. But at some point, our residents want to go back to some sense of normalcy where they can reconnect with their loved ones.”

Advocates for long-term care residents contend the association has grossly inflated the cost of testing and focused too much of its pandemic response on seeking more funding from the federal government.

“We are losing a generation of our loved ones at these facilities,” said Brian Lee, executive director of the nonprofit Families for Better Care. “And their reaction has been to try to squeeze more money out of the taxpayers. It’s sickening.”