'They're Death Pits': Virus Claims at Least 7,000 Lives in U.S. Nursing Homes
The first warning of the devastation that the coronavirus could wreak inside American nursing homes came in late February, when residents of a facility in suburban Seattle perished, one by one, as families waited helplessly outside. In the ensuing six weeks, large and shockingly lethal outbreaks have continued to ravage nursing homes across the nation, undeterred by urgent new safety requirements. Now a nationwide tally by The New York Times has found the number of people living in or connected to nursing homes who have died of the coronavirus to be at least 7,000, far higher than previously known.
Overall, about a fifth of deaths from the virus in the United States have been tied to nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, the Times review of cases shows. And more than 36,500 residents and employees across the nation have contracted it.
“They’re death pits,” said Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York who founded the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, an education campaign aimed at stopping hospital-acquired infections. “These nursing homes are already overwhelmed. They’re crowded and they’re understaffed. One Covid-positive patient in a nursing home produces carnage.”
The virus is known to be more deadly to aging, immune-compromised people, and small, confined settings like nursing homes, where workers frequently move from one room to the next, are particularly vulnerable to spreading infection.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/us/coronavirus-nursing-homes.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR2xUv_AmnY6LoRQtXP72uUEn8OvI-YsZYg4N2dlJDaQOkuzxST7Fd4qJGI
= new reply since forum marked as read
