Transcript
There are shocking new numbers that show the toll COVID-19 is taking on American nursing homes.
According to a tally by the New York times, nursing homes are linked to more than one in three deaths in the US.
11 percent of the country’s reported cases are also linked to nursing homes.
In recent days, CNN has reported on individual states with spiking numbers that are shocking.
In New Jersey more than half the state’s deaths have come at nursing homes.
In New Hampshire, as of a few days ago, nearly 80 percent of the deaths were at nursing homes.
The governor of New York is now requiring that nursing home staff members be tested twice a week for coronavirus and says hospitals cannot discharge a patient to a nursing home unless the patient tests negative.
Experts say nursing homes are at high risk for being infected.
COVID-19 is known to be deadly to older adults with underlying health conditions and many of those in nursing homes already have chronic health problems.
Also experts say many residents live and interact in closed spaces, putting them at high risk because they can’t effectively distance.
And staff shortages at nursing homes, which experts say were a problem before this outbreak, are now making the risks even greater for staffers and residents.
In nursing homes workers could be dealing with multiple take multiple patients at a time meaning you could have one person going from room to room.
In mid-March, the federal government issued guidance banning nearly all visitors and communal activities at nursing homes.
This has led to some relatives getting creative and checking on their elderly loved ones through the windows of those facilities.
Posted – 5.12.20