COVID-19 Again Tearing Through Nursing Homes, As Death Toll Rises

December 11, 2020

Americans who live in nursing homes, and the people who care for them, are holding on for dear life. Nearly 4,000 residents of long-term care facilities around the U.S. died of coronavirus-related causes during the week of Nov. 29, industry data show, as COVID-19 rages on.

“Your heart is being ripped out as you’re telling a family member their loved one has COVID,” said Bethany Murray, the administrator at Cedar Crest Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Sunnyvale, California, in recounting how the disease has ripped through eldercare facilities.

The renewed spike in infections has been alarming enough that Mark Parkinson, CEO of the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, acknowledged last month that nursing homes “are powerless to fully prevent it from entering due to its asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread.”

Parkinson, in underscoring the difficulty of keeping residents and staffers safe, also pushed for early access to the vaccine.

Read the full article from CBS News.