More than 30,000 nursing home residents in U.S. have died during COVID-19 pandemic
About 12% of these facilities have not yet reported figures
New federal data released Thursday reflect the rising toll of nursing home deaths amid the novel-coronavirus pandemic and the desperate need among some of nation’s 15,000 facilities for personnel and basic supplies.
The national tally of nursing home deaths attributed to the coronavirus has reached nearly 32,000, and it is sure to rise: About 12% of the homes have not yet reported figures. The new data also shows that 683 nursing home employees have died.
Thousands of facilities report being underequipped for the continuing onslaught from the virus.
Nearly 2,000 facilities reported a shortage of nursing staff; more than 2,200 lack enough aides, and more than 500 lack any supply of N95 masks used to prevent infection, according to the data. More than 250 nursing homes lack any surgical masks and another 800 are within a week of running out.
The new figures build on data released Tuesday by federal regulators that showed about 25,000 residents had died after contracting the virus but more nursing homes have reported data since then.
“We have failed the residents and we have failed the staff as a society,” said Michael Wasserman, president of the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine.
He said nursing homes with strong leadership, stringent infection-control measures and adequate staffing levels were better equipped to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. But even the best nursing homes lacked personal protective equipment and testing.
“This is something the CDC should have been studying from the beginning,” Wasserman said.
The federal government’s decision to provide information about outbreaks at nursing homes comes after more than a dozen states have refused to make public the same information. The refusal of several states to inform the public of which nursing homes have had coronavirus infections led to lawsuits.
In some states the legal wrangling led to the public release of the information. In Florida, state officials released more information after a lawsuit filed by the Miami Herald, The Washington Post and other media organizations. In other states — including Arizona and Idaho — media organizations have filed lawsuits. As of the end of May, 18 states were not disclosing information, according to a survey by USA Today.
On April 30, the U.S. agency that oversees nursing homes — the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — issued a rule calling for nursing homes to report information on coronavirus cases and deaths among residents and staff to the agency.
“We wanted to be as transparent as possible with the American people,” CMS Chief Seema Verma said Thursday.
The data released Thursday covers nearly nine in 10 of the country’s 15,000 federally certified nursing homes. It does not include assisted living centers and other types of eldercare facilities that are not certified by CMS. Besides details on cases and deaths per home, the data is also supposed to include information on shortages of personal protective equipment, which some homes have blamed for their high rates of infection.
The chief nursing home trade group, the American Health Care Association, has lobbied strongly for federal subsidies to help nursing homes buy personal protective equipment such as face masks, gloves and disposable gowns. When the Department of Health and Human Services allocated $4.9 billion in aid to nursing homes on May 21, in part to pay for PPE, the AHCA said its members needed more.
A little over a week later, Mark Parkinson, president and chief executive of the association, said getting more help was vital. The association has sought a total of $10 billion in taxpayer assistance.
“The reality is that longterm care providers are facing an unprecedented situation that has left them begging for testing, personal protective equipment (PPE) and staffing resources,” he said. “Just like hospitals, we have called for help. In our case, it has been difficult to get anyone to listen.
“Whether it’s federal, state or local health agencies, long term care needs to be a priority for supplies and help. It’s time that America rally around our long term care residents just as they did with hospitals.”
The trade group for nonprofit senior care, Leading Age, also argues that more help is needed.
“Months into the crisis, it is pitiful that aging services providers are still scrounging for PPE. Too often, the only signs of FEMA’s much-hyped promise of PPE shipments — an allotment of gowns, gloves, masks and goggles based on staffing size of the provider — are scattershot delivery with varying amounts of rag-tag supplies,” Katie Smith Sloan, the group’s chief executive, said in a statement Thursday.
But advocates say the data released this week does not absolve nursing homes from the need to be more transparent.
“Nobody should be relying on the CMS data to get an accurate picture of the crisis unfolding in nursing homes across the country,” said Mike Dark, a lawyer with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. “Many facilities are still not reporting data, and spotty availability of testing kits and staff to administer the tests means that many sick residents and workers are not included in the counts.”
“Until we get more accurate tallies it will be impossible for state and federal health authorities to know where resources are most needed. Many more of our elderly and disabled will die as a result.”
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should have held nursing homes accountable for lapses in infection control and prevention long before the pandemic, said Arlene Germain, policy director of Massachusetts Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. She said the deaths of 400 nursing home staff members could have been mitigated if homes were better prepared and had access to supplies and testing.
“It’s heartbreaking,” she said of the death count. “It shouldn’t have happened.”