CNA Staff, Aug 12, 2020 / 11:10 am
Official figures from New York state likely under-represent the real number of nursing home residents who died as a result of COVID-19, according to a new report on Tuesday.
Officially, New York claims to have lost 6,600 nursing home residents to COVID-19, which would be just over 20% of the state's total deaths. In neighboring New Jersey, nursing home residents account for 44% of the state's total death toll, and in Pennsylvania, that figure rises to 68% of the total number of COVID-19 deaths.
Unlike other states, New York only tallies nursing home deaths from COVID-19 if they actually occurred in a nursing home. A resident of a nursing home who died from COVID-19 after being transported to a hospital for intensive care would not be considered a nursing home death in New York.
In an August 12 report by Associated Press, the New York statistics do not appear to tally either with regional patterns or with the current occupancy rates in nursing homes.