According to NBC News, who compiled numbers from close to 2,500 elderly facilities in 36 states, 2,246 elderly residents have died due to COVID-19 (coronavirus).

Why is this hitting home with me, and why am I focused on this more than anything? My mother is 94 years old. She does live in a nursing home, it is called assisted living, and I worry about her every day. I was able to get her a mask, and she won’t stay inside the house.

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On Friday, NBC reported how the nursing home numbers were incomplete because the federal government doesn’t keep a formal tally of coronavirus deaths in nursing homes. How many of you believe that it is impossible to contain a virus if you don’t know where it is.

As nursing homes are populated exclusively by the elderly, infirm, and chronically ill, living continuously in close quarters, it would be a miracle if the mortality rate in these institutions were NOT higher than average. It is an inherent risk of the environment, not a deficiency in operation.

That is why nursing homes have been advising their clients’ families to take them home, if possible, to remove them from this environment during the time of risk. But, no doubt, there will be some ad on the news from some h-bound lawyer about suing for “risk.”

The report comes as The New York Times on Saturday reported equally disturbing numbers regarding coronavirus deaths at nursing homes in New York and New Jersey.

As of Friday, more than half of New York’s 613 licensed nursing homes had reported coronavirus infections, with 4,630 total positive cases and 1,439 deaths, the Times reported.

In New Jersey, nursing homes had been linked to 252 virus-related deaths, more than 90 of them in the past two days, according to the paper. At least 70 percent of the state’s long care centers have been affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

“The story is not about whether there’s COVID-19 in the nursing homes,” Scott LaRue, chief executive of ArchCare, operator of five nursing homes in New York, told the paper. “The story is, why aren’t they being treated with the same respect and the same resources that everyone else out there is? It’s ridiculous.” [FoxNews]

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This is quite a challenge for these facilities that care for the aged and deteriorating mental capacity. We have a family member in Memory Care, and they have been locked down for weeks. However, unless the staff is also locked down and cannot leave the facility, there will be exposure. I know some of the staff at this facility commute via the city bus system.

The greatest generation needs to be treated with respect. Most of these people in nursing homes are probably veterans or spouses of veterans. Why are the governors in the hardest-hit New York and New Jersey on the sidelines over this? Call a “time out,” regroup, and forget about the Democrat death panels for a moment or pass the ball to people who care.

The next news flash is that it always seems to get dark at nite. Perhaps the government should track this. Disclosure.: I have no affiliation with any nursing home, by any means.

 

This piece was written by Wayne Dupree on April 13, 2020. It originally appeared in WayneDupree.com and is used by permission.

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