Over 200,000 residents and staff at long-term care facilities have died due to COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of state and federal agency data.
These deaths account for 23% of all recorded COVID-19 deaths in the nation, down from earlier in the pandemic when long-term care facility (LTCF) deaths accounted for nearly half of all deaths across the U.S., the group wrote.
KFF had tallied 187,000 LTCF deaths from March 2020 to June 2021, when states were regularly reporting data on nursing homes, assisted living, group homes and other LTCF deaths.
Since then, another 14,000 resident and staff deaths among nursing homes have been reported through the federal government.
KFF Senior Policy Analyst Priya Chidambaram wrote that the total of roughly 201,000 LTFC deaths recorded as of Jan. 30 is “likely an undercount” due to limitations in how states and the government have reported these data—for instance, the exclusion of death counts from non-nursing home LTFCs after June 2021.
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“Overall, cases and deaths in nursing homes appear to be declining,” Chidambaram wrote in the analysis. “However, this analysis confirms the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on people living and working in LTCFs and highlights the importance of comprehensive, timely and accurate data.
Chidambaram also noted that data are not available on the demographics or other characteristics of those who died of COVID-19 in LTCFs, precluding analysis on whether factors such as age, race/ethnicity or vaccination status may have played a role in these numbers.
Several investigations have highlighted the disproportionate burden LTFC residents and staff have faced through the pandemic.
An Office of Inspector General report from the summer, for instance, found 2 in 5 Medicare beneficiaries living in nursing homes were diagnosed or likely had COVID-19 during 2020 alone. Another from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found evidence suggesting that most nursing homes had already experienced multiple, often sizable, outbreaks by the end of January 2021.
LTFCs’ latest death count comes as Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing homes work to vaccinate staff in accordance with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requirements. Roughly 82% of nursing home staff and 87% of residents were fully vaccinated as of Jan. 16, according to CMS.
However, industry groups such as the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living that generally supported COVID-19 vaccination have raised alarms about the mandate, warning it could exacerbate staffing shortages already jeopardizing care quality and forcing facilities to turn away new admissions.