Over 7,000 of the country’s coronavirus deaths emerged out of nursing homes.
Of the 4,377 coronavirus deaths in New Jersey, over 1,700 died due to infections in nursing homes. That nearly 40% of coronavirus deaths in one of the hardest hit states took place in nursing homes casts a stark light on the misplaced priorities of blue states battling the pandemic by locking down houses of worship and small businesses, while putting few to no resources into protecting nursing home residents.
New Jersey’s coronavirus deaths were part of the coronavirus outbreak in 425 nursing homes. At one nursing home, after an anonymous tip, police found 17 bodies being stored in a shed.
Nearly 7,000 nursing home residents in the state have tested positive for coronavirus.
In neighboring New York, nearly 1 in 4 coronavirus deaths emerged from nursing homes. Those 3,060 deaths are only part of the story and represent an extremely incomplete picture. The Health Department had battled against releasing the information, claiming that it was protecting the privacy of residents. Even when the people pleading for the release of the information were their own loved ones.
In one facility, 17% of the residents have died. In 5 others, more than 10% are dead.
And even now, only data from a fraction of nursing homes in the state has been made public.
Why were New York authorities so reluctant to release the information? Even the partial data makes it all too clear that the severity of the death toll was not due to urban density, but poor oversight and response. If urban density were the issue, Manhattan would have some of the highest numbers. Instead it has among the lowest, while boroughs with sizable nursing homes have the highest numbers.
The actual nursing home death toll in New York may be closer to 3,316
In New York City, while the official numbers peg it at 688, the actual numbers may be over 2,000.
And the death toll, actual or estimated, is only a part of a bigger picture with 8% of nursing home residents in the state testing positive for the virus. Those numbers make it painfully clear that the dying is likely to continue and that authorities have utterly failed to secure our most vulnerable population.
The Cuomo administration is blaming nursing homes. And while nursing homes often provide poor care and personnel often work in different facilities at the same time spreading the infection between them, it was the state that ordered facilities to accept coronavirus patients returning from the hospital.
Governor Cuomo's Department of Health had issued an order that, "no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19" and also prohibited requiring testing of returning patients. Sending hospitalized patients with coronavirus to the same mismanaged nursing homes was a death sentence for countless seniors in those facilities.
As Betsy McCaughey, the former Republican lieutenant governor, has said, "One Covid-positive patient in a nursing home produces carnage.”
Is it any wonder that the Department of Health obstructed the release of nursing home fatalities?
In Connecticut, 40% of coronavirus fatalities emerged from nursing homes.
In Virginia, the majority of the coronavirus outbreaks have taken place in nursing homes. Like New York, Virginia’s Department of Health is refusing to release the names of the facilities with outbreaks.
That means loved ones have no way to know if their families are at risk.
Governor Ralph Northam's administration is continuing to engage in the cover-up even as a quarter of the population in one facility died of the coronavirus. That outbreak was the deadliest in America.
In Illinois, Governor Pritzker's administration had fought against providing the numbers of deaths and the identity of the nursing homes with outbreaks by claiming that it was protecting the privacy of residents, but finally began putting out some numbers about coronavirus deaths in nursing homes.
1 in 4 coronavirus deaths in Cook County, an area which includes Chicago, took place in nursing homes.
In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer's administration also refused to release the names of infected facilities. What information reporters have put together indicates that over a third of coronavirus deaths in Wayne County took place in nursing homes. Every nursing home in Detroit is infected.
“We have a crisis in our nursing homes,” Mayor Mike Duggan admitted, as 35% of nursing home residents tested had the virus.
In California, 29% of the deaths in Los Angeles County have taken place in nursing homes. In nearby Long Beach, it’s as high as 72%. In one Central Valley home, 156 residents tested positive and 8 died.
The Newsom administration, like its blue state counterparts, dragged its feet on releasing nursing home information, until its feet were held to the fire.
Governor Newsom is now claiming that nursing home residents are his top priority. “This state has a disproportionate number of aging and graying individuals, and we have a unique responsibility to take care of them and their caregivers.”
Except that California, like New York, was forcing care facilities to accept coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals. Newsom, like Cuomo, has blood on his manicured hands.
The ten deadliest outbreaks in this country have taken place in nursing homes and care facilities.
While officials around the country shut down churches and synagogues, arrested people for surfing and playing catch, and sent drones flying over their backyards, little was done to secure the estimated 4,100 nursing homes out of over 15,000 in the country where coronavirus was known to have taken root.
Even though the first coronavirus outbreak in this country took place in a nursing home in Washington, and killed 43 people, the CDC failed to track the spread of the virus to nursing homes nationwide.
Instead, the CDC has been relying on "informal outreach" to track the spread and has not updated its numbers since March.
The CDC's estimate of 400 nursing homes is only about 10% of the national total.
The Trump administration took an important step by ordering nursing homes to report coronavirus deaths to the CDC, and to the residents and their families. This move puts an end to the state stonewalling that covered up coronavirus cases and their own malfeasance.
It’s the beginning. Not the end.
Coronavirus disproportionately affects the elderly and the ill. Securing nursing home facilities would cost a fraction of the money we have lost by shutting down the economy and passing massive bailouts. And as death tolls remain a major barrier to reopening the economy, saving lives in nursing homes will also save the economy. It’s the right thing to do for our parents, grandparents, and for our country.
Protecting nursing home residents isn’t easy, but it’s a lot easier than shutting down America.
We don’t need to stop people from planting flowers in their yards or going to the beach. Instead, blue state and local governments, where the pandemic death toll is concentrated, failed to do the most basic and decent thing because it wasn’t in their political interest and didn’t offer the same allure of power.
Thousands of lives could have been saved if they had done the right thing. And they still can be.
Blue state governments lied, deliberately covering up the scale of nursing home deaths, while playing up the pandemic risks and the lockdown. Their decisions killed the weak and the elderly, devastated the economy, and transformed the entire relationship between the people and their governments.
The appeal of imposing social distancing measures on everyone proved irresistible to blue governments even while they neglected to track virus cases in the places where they were most likely to emerge.
At least 7,000 seniors paid the price. And, in our own ways, we all paid the price.
As the numbers trickle in from recalcitrant blue states, the truth is finally coming out. That truth should carry its own consequences for the bureaucrats who let so many die while chanting hollow slogans. It should also transform our coronavirus policy from the federal level to state and local governments.
Let the truth be spoken and let the lies fall.
Thank you for reading.
Of the 4,377 coronavirus deaths in New Jersey, over 1,700 died due to infections in nursing homes. That nearly 40% of coronavirus deaths in one of the hardest hit states took place in nursing homes casts a stark light on the misplaced priorities of blue states battling the pandemic by locking down houses of worship and small businesses, while putting few to no resources into protecting nursing home residents.New Jersey’s coronavirus deaths were part of the coronavirus outbreak in 425 nursing homes. At one nursing home, after an anonymous tip, police found 17 bodies being stored in a shed.
Nearly 7,000 nursing home residents in the state have tested positive for coronavirus.
In neighboring New York, nearly 1 in 4 coronavirus deaths emerged from nursing homes. Those 3,060 deaths are only part of the story and represent an extremely incomplete picture. The Health Department had battled against releasing the information, claiming that it was protecting the privacy of residents. Even when the people pleading for the release of the information were their own loved ones.
In one facility, 17% of the residents have died. In 5 others, more than 10% are dead.
And even now, only data from a fraction of nursing homes in the state has been made public.
Why were New York authorities so reluctant to release the information? Even the partial data makes it all too clear that the severity of the death toll was not due to urban density, but poor oversight and response. If urban density were the issue, Manhattan would have some of the highest numbers. Instead it has among the lowest, while boroughs with sizable nursing homes have the highest numbers.
The actual nursing home death toll in New York may be closer to 3,316
In New York City, while the official numbers peg it at 688, the actual numbers may be over 2,000.
And the death toll, actual or estimated, is only a part of a bigger picture with 8% of nursing home residents in the state testing positive for the virus. Those numbers make it painfully clear that the dying is likely to continue and that authorities have utterly failed to secure our most vulnerable population.
The Cuomo administration is blaming nursing homes. And while nursing homes often provide poor care and personnel often work in different facilities at the same time spreading the infection between them, it was the state that ordered facilities to accept coronavirus patients returning from the hospital.
Governor Cuomo's Department of Health had issued an order that, "no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19" and also prohibited requiring testing of returning patients. Sending hospitalized patients with coronavirus to the same mismanaged nursing homes was a death sentence for countless seniors in those facilities.
As Betsy McCaughey, the former Republican lieutenant governor, has said, "One Covid-positive patient in a nursing home produces carnage.”
Is it any wonder that the Department of Health obstructed the release of nursing home fatalities?
In Connecticut, 40% of coronavirus fatalities emerged from nursing homes.
In Virginia, the majority of the coronavirus outbreaks have taken place in nursing homes. Like New York, Virginia’s Department of Health is refusing to release the names of the facilities with outbreaks.
That means loved ones have no way to know if their families are at risk.
Governor Ralph Northam's administration is continuing to engage in the cover-up even as a quarter of the population in one facility died of the coronavirus. That outbreak was the deadliest in America.
In Illinois, Governor Pritzker's administration had fought against providing the numbers of deaths and the identity of the nursing homes with outbreaks by claiming that it was protecting the privacy of residents, but finally began putting out some numbers about coronavirus deaths in nursing homes.
1 in 4 coronavirus deaths in Cook County, an area which includes Chicago, took place in nursing homes.
In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer's administration also refused to release the names of infected facilities. What information reporters have put together indicates that over a third of coronavirus deaths in Wayne County took place in nursing homes. Every nursing home in Detroit is infected.
“We have a crisis in our nursing homes,” Mayor Mike Duggan admitted, as 35% of nursing home residents tested had the virus.
In California, 29% of the deaths in Los Angeles County have taken place in nursing homes. In nearby Long Beach, it’s as high as 72%. In one Central Valley home, 156 residents tested positive and 8 died.
The Newsom administration, like its blue state counterparts, dragged its feet on releasing nursing home information, until its feet were held to the fire.
Governor Newsom is now claiming that nursing home residents are his top priority. “This state has a disproportionate number of aging and graying individuals, and we have a unique responsibility to take care of them and their caregivers.”
Except that California, like New York, was forcing care facilities to accept coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals. Newsom, like Cuomo, has blood on his manicured hands.
The ten deadliest outbreaks in this country have taken place in nursing homes and care facilities.
While officials around the country shut down churches and synagogues, arrested people for surfing and playing catch, and sent drones flying over their backyards, little was done to secure the estimated 4,100 nursing homes out of over 15,000 in the country where coronavirus was known to have taken root.
Even though the first coronavirus outbreak in this country took place in a nursing home in Washington, and killed 43 people, the CDC failed to track the spread of the virus to nursing homes nationwide.
Instead, the CDC has been relying on "informal outreach" to track the spread and has not updated its numbers since March.
The CDC's estimate of 400 nursing homes is only about 10% of the national total.
The Trump administration took an important step by ordering nursing homes to report coronavirus deaths to the CDC, and to the residents and their families. This move puts an end to the state stonewalling that covered up coronavirus cases and their own malfeasance.
It’s the beginning. Not the end.
Coronavirus disproportionately affects the elderly and the ill. Securing nursing home facilities would cost a fraction of the money we have lost by shutting down the economy and passing massive bailouts. And as death tolls remain a major barrier to reopening the economy, saving lives in nursing homes will also save the economy. It’s the right thing to do for our parents, grandparents, and for our country.
Protecting nursing home residents isn’t easy, but it’s a lot easier than shutting down America.
We don’t need to stop people from planting flowers in their yards or going to the beach. Instead, blue state and local governments, where the pandemic death toll is concentrated, failed to do the most basic and decent thing because it wasn’t in their political interest and didn’t offer the same allure of power.
Thousands of lives could have been saved if they had done the right thing. And they still can be.
Blue state governments lied, deliberately covering up the scale of nursing home deaths, while playing up the pandemic risks and the lockdown. Their decisions killed the weak and the elderly, devastated the economy, and transformed the entire relationship between the people and their governments.
The appeal of imposing social distancing measures on everyone proved irresistible to blue governments even while they neglected to track virus cases in the places where they were most likely to emerge.
At least 7,000 seniors paid the price. And, in our own ways, we all paid the price.
As the numbers trickle in from recalcitrant blue states, the truth is finally coming out. That truth should carry its own consequences for the bureaucrats who let so many die while chanting hollow slogans. It should also transform our coronavirus policy from the federal level to state and local governments.
Let the truth be spoken and let the lies fall.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
Thank you for reading.
Comments
Don't worry though, the same politicians will not mess up national healthcare…
ReplyDeleteI hope citizens are waking up to (being nice) incompetent politicians are. But in reality, criminal.
Anecdotes from New York, Illinois, Michigan,
ReplyDeleteCalifornia seem to imply your thesis, and tug at
the heart. But I wish you had more thoroughly
made the case that high Nursing Home deaths were
strongly correlated to political party and cause.
A table of states identified by party and sorted
by senior death rate would have been nice; what
were the good and bad practices, regulations?
Significant differences by party? At least show
the top twenty states.
If transparency was a big issue, why? Are Dems
just evil? Daniel, I agree with most all your
views, but here I fear you’re left yourself open
to a charge of cherry picking and hasty conclusion.
You need more relevant data, compared apple to
apple, and summarized for comprehension.
Charlie
Having that information would be great, but it doesn't yet exist for reasons discussed in the article. It may exist before long, also for reasons discussed in the article.
DeleteThat said, the article delves into cases in some of the hardest hit parts of the country.
A table of senior deaths that covers Montana and Wyoming would be a lot less crucial. Blue states have generally bit hit harder anyway so that wouldn't prove anything.
Daniel; Your response to my critique is well taken.
DeleteWe are in the fog of war, where information is
scarce and unreliable. I do suspect that the top
twenty states (senior death) I asked for would be
largely Democrat governed. I would also expect to
see a governing philosophy of feel good ism and
appearance typical of Democrats rather than
efficacy typical of Republicans.
We’ll need to wait for studies years from now.
Charlie
Call me cynical, but this sounds like a solution for blue governments. Old people are typically more conservative and complain about the tax strain in these places. (I have parents in NJ, thankfully not in a nursing home.)
ReplyDeleteWould like to know your thoughts on Seymour Hersh's reporting on the Samson Option.
ReplyDeleteThis virus is engineered; CRISPR was used on a molecular level.
Interesting how the Harvard Professor Leiber and his "exchange students" still havent shown up on MSM
Seymour Hersh has a history of making stuff up.
DeleteIf this virus was engineered, they didn't do a great job of it. It's not that useful as a weapon.
A more likely scenario is that it was a byproduct of experiments with the end goal of making bioweapons that was accidentally leaked. They were trying to generate mutations naturally and create something that doesn't look like a weapon. They generated the mutations naturally through animal passage, but it leaked well before it was all that deadly.
ReplyDeleteDaniel,
Thank you for this article.
Ombudsmen are no longer making their normal visits and drop-ins. For some states, this shut-down had been going on since early March. We have totally over-corrected in the midst of a very frightening situation - but nursing homes CANNOT go unsupervised by outside, random, and unexpected visitors (again, by ombudsmen, family, etc.) for weeks and months on end. (We’ve just gotten a glimmer of the atrocities that will finally emerge when the sad history of all this finally gets written).
Why not re-deploy hospital workers (who are getting furloughed) to overwhelmed nursing homes? Think of the encouragement and help that would be.
I plead with you to keep pressing on this issue. We have to figure out some savvy ways to accomplish this - insist on staff walk around with the phone on face-time, showing the conditions - and these need to be unannounced phone-in calls, etc. And, longer term, this is an issue that we’re gonna need to figure out.
Many of our medical (“expert”) interventions - purportedly aimed to protect the vulnerable - are ending up being de facto veritable death sentences because of lack of tacit advocacy (and oversight) and depressive seclusion bordering on solitary confinement.
We need to rationally and humanely (these are not contradictory) reframe whom we label "essential workers." Family - and spiritual support - and outside oversight (via both ombudsmen and family members) - would indeed be considered by our elders (in their twilight years, and some at the doorstep of death) as frontline first responders.
Bobby D. Rampey
NJ
volunteer chaplain to the elderly for 30+ years (currently ineptly via phone)
Do not cast me away when I am old.
Do not forsake me when my strength is gone.
~Psalm 71:9
Thank you Mr. Rampey for your thoughtful response.
DeleteMy very healthy 96 yr. old Aunt who can walk up a flight of stairs with no problem, has been 'sheltering in place' in her room for over a month at a very nice care facility. Needless to say, she is getting quite bored, is allowed to take walks in the hallway now and then, and as far as I know is still not allowed to go outside. (I assume for liability reasons). It is in a very nice area, out of the way from large populations where Sequoia's reach for the heaven's. I desperately hope I will again be able to see her, and some of her friends before death comes for a visit.
"saving lives in nursing homes will also save the economy. It’s the right thing to do for our parents, grandparents, and for our country"
ReplyDeleteand our children and grandchildren.
--malca
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