We may never know how many people actually died in nursing homes due to coronavirus and that seems to be exactly how the White House wants it. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) isn’t requiring nursing homes to report deaths that occurred before May 8th. The Wall Street Journal spoke with David Grabowski, a professor at Harvard Medical School about this. He said, “We’re going to get a very incomplete picture… How do we understand what’s happening if we only have data back to” early May?
NBC says CMS wouldn’t comment on this this news:
“I think that is outrageous,” said Charlene Harrington, nursing professor emerita from the University of California San Francisco, who said the administration was aiding the nursing home industry by “helping them cover up the death rates.”
“Not only do the high death rates look bad for the nursing home industry,” she said, “but also for the administration.”
MSNBC Rachel Maddow wrote, “Many parts of Trump Administration have done a terrible job contending with the epidemic, clearly. But there will be a special place in history for how *specifically* terrible CMS (which oversees nursing homes) has been.”
But Tuesday Trump took no responsibility, instead he just passed the buck to “governors.”
And, as usual, Fox News has been doing the president’s bidding. The cable channel has been trying to place most, if not all of the blame, for nursing home deaths on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Several people at the network have said his nursing home policy “that critics say contributed to thousands of coronavirus deaths.” But Cuomo says New York was just following the president’s agency’s guidance from this March 13th directive.
No doubt there is a lot of blame to go around, which includes the Trump administration, multiple governors, and nursing homes themselves. But now the question is what has been learned from these last few months and what is being done to save more lives going forward. The Chicago Sun-Times points out “What’s needed is a national response, which will never be led by President Donald Trump. That would require compassion and competence.” As News & Guts wrote last week, “a group of Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes.” We reached out to find out the status of that bill, but haven’t heard back.
Meanwhile the Associated Press reports, “Nearly two weeks ago the White House urged governors to ensure that every nursing home resident and staff member be tested for the coronavirus within 14 days.” But it didn’t provide the tests or resources to do so. The AP adds:
The president has preferred to offload key responsibilities and decisions to states and governors, despite calls for a coordinated national response.
The Chicago Tribune writes “elected officials here and elsewhere need to be ready for possible second and third waves of coronavirus outbreaks this fall and beyond.” The paper’s editorial board went on it says it’s “why preparations should be underway to funnel resources to long-term care facilities.”
If an effective treatment or vaccine becomes available, nursing homes should be among the first in line. If the federal government sends unrestricted cash to the states, they better prioritize the sick and the elderly. Are you listening, lawmakers?
