“BREAKING: 16,000 COVID deaths missed in nursing homes”

BREAKING: 16,000 COVID deaths missed in nursing homes, by Danielle Brown, McKnight’s LTC News

 

 

Quote:

“More than 16,000 COVID-19 deaths and 68,000 cases among nursing home residents nationwide were omitted from federal data after officials made it optional for providers to submit some information during the first months of the pandemic, Harvard researchers have found. … The missed data represented 11.6% of total COVID-19 cases and 14% of total deaths among nursing home residents in 2020. … Grabowski added that by including the unreported cases and deaths to the 2020 totals, investigators now estimate the national 2020 total of nursing home COVID cases was 592,629 and the COVID death count was 118,335.”

 

 

LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform:

Kind of a big oversight. But it’s important to keep in mind that at the height of the pandemic caregivers were overwhelmed providing care often at the expense of record keeping and reporting.