Rachel Maddow once again, now the House of Representatives swept a spotlight on the despicable nursing home mortality rate of COVID -19. Nursing Home residents remain the largest % of deaths in the US. Although only 0.6 of the population they  represent a whopping  42 % of the deaths 

Feds Statistics Insanely Wrong

Highlighting the Do Nothing attitude that continues in the Trump federal government, CMS just released data collected from nursing home national wide that is cast as insanely wrong. Nursing home officials said their data were somehow scrambled, either because nursing home personnel reported in the wrong columns, or the numbers were loaded incorrectly somewhere between the CDC and CMS.

Yesterday the House Select Committee Briefing Confirms Urgent Need for Federal Action to Protect Nursing Homes from Coronavirus

Chaired by Rep. James E. Clyburn, they explored the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on nursing home residents and workers, including the deaths of more than 40,000 Americans in nursing homes across the country. 

 Chairman Clyburn called on the Trump Administration to take action to protect nursing homes, stating:  “[W]e need the federal government to ensure our nursing homes have enough testing and personal protective equipment to stop the virus from spreading.  That means providing coordination and resources—not just leaving it up to the states.” 

Dr. David Grabowski of Harvard Medical School explained, “Rather than pushing the logistics and costs of testing and PPE to states and nursing homes, the federal government needs to own this issue.  The federal government should set a consistent policy across all U.S. nursing homes and then provide states and nursing homes with the resources to achieve it.”  He concluded, “The buck has to stop there.” 

The Trump administration failed to provide nursing homes with testing and protective equipment.

We have focused on a lack of PPE in hospitals but what about nursing homes. Asked if the federal government has done enough to stem the outbreak in nursing homes, Dr. Grabowski replied:  “Absolutely not, the guidance was not sufficient.  I’ve actually called it ‘non-guidance guidance’ in that there were no teeth or dollars behind it.  And if you don’t put logistics, if you don’t put costs into this guidance, if it’s just simply a theoretical set of guidance for the nursing homes and for the states; it’s not actually going to happen.”  He concluded, “I would have liked to have seen federal leadership.”

Dr. Grabowski stated that nursing homes in many states still “can’t get testing fast enough” and “are really struggling to find the tests.”  He explained, “The federal government should’ve put the testing in place and actually paid for it.”  He stated, “Until we get rapid and accurate testing for all staff and residents, we won’t be able to contain COVID.”

Mr. Carlson explained that nursing homes face serious shortages of PPE and that “shipments from FEMA have been a bit late and inadequate.”  He also explained that “the lack of federal coordination” has “impeded facilities’ ability to identify infected persons and to provide care.”

PPE Feds Send Looks like Blue Plastic Trash bags

NPR reported the PPE is either never delivered, flimsy, and much less than ordered or looks like remade trash bags. Instead of proper medical gowns, many packages hold large blue plastic ponchos.

In late April I blogged about the national COVID epidemic in nursing homes. It has been a month and a half and death toll, which was 10,000 rocketed up to, 40000, now – that’s 30,000 more deaths in just a month and a half.

Workers in the facilities still have inadequate PPE to protect themselves from the virus, and CMS in some fabulist attempt to look like it actually cares about Medicare and Medicaid, comes up with an outcome study that seems to be run by drunks or charlatans.

Now Rachel Maddow is showing us nothing has changed except the bodies are piled higher and higher in nursing homes. I care and I assume every senior agency that gets this does but put that caring into action. Write your Congressman, or maybe just adopt a nursing home and raise money in the community to buy PPE for them. This is, of course, pathetic but the government does not care, CMS does not care and President Trump certainly does not care about older people.