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A26 U.S. NEWS
Friday 24 april 2020
11,000 deaths: Ravaged nursing homes plead for more testing

Continued from page 25 emphasis has gone away lance," White House virus 15 minutes. Massachusetts Cuomo, who has described
from hospitals to where the chief Deborah Birx calls it abruptly halted a program COVID-19 in nursing homes
After a home in Brooklyn real battle is taking place in — to find these hidden car- to send test kits directly to as "fire through dry grass,"
reported 55 coronavirus nursing homes, we should riers, isolate them and stop nursing homes this week said he would ideally like
deaths last week, its CEO be at a priority level one." the spread. after 4,000 of them turned to see any resident, staffer
acknowledged it was Two-thirds of U.S. nursing The U.S. is currently testing out to be faulty. New or visitor seeking to enter a
based entirely on symp- homes still don't have "easy roughly 150,000 people Hampshire teamed with nursing home take a rapid
test that would come back
in 20 minutes. But, he said,
"that's millions of tests."
Dr. Roy Goldberg, medical
director of a nursing home
in the Bronx that reported
45 deaths, said his facility
still can't test asymptomatic
patients because of short-
ages that have limited test-
ing to those showing fever
or a cough.
"This isn't what anyone
signed up for," Goldberg
said. "It just breaks my heart
that the long-term care in-
dustry is going to end up
being totally scapegoated
on this."
Amid the tragedies have
emerged hopeful cases in
which early and aggressive
testing has made huge dif-
ference.
After the first of two deaths
at a Sheboygan, Wiscon-
sin, nursing home and other
residents and staffers start-
ed falling ill, administrator
In this Monday, April 20, 2020, file photo, emergency medical technicians transport a patient from a nursing home to an emergency Colinda Nappa got on the
room bed at St. Joseph's Hospital in Yonkers, N.Y.
Associated Press. phone and pleaded with
state officials: "I got to know
what is going on."
toms and educated guess- access to test kits" and are daily, for a total of 4.5 mil- an urgent-care company A 65-member National
es the dead had COVID-19 struggling to obtain suffi- lion results reported, ac- to test care workers. Sev- Guard testing unit soon
because they were unable cient resources, said Chris cording to data compiled eral states including Colo- showed up, donned head-
to actually test any of the Laxton, executive direc- by the COVID Tracking Proj- rado, Florida, Maryland, to-toe protective suits and
residents or staff. tor of The Society for Post- ect. Public health experts Tennessee and Wisconsin quickly tested nearly 100
At a nursing home in sub- Acute and Long-Term Care say that needs to be much have dispatched National residents and 150 staffers.
urban Richmond, Virgin- Medicine. higher. "We need likely mil- Guard testing strike teams. In all, 19 residents and staff-
ia, that has so far seen 49 "Those nursing home lead- lions of tests a day," said Dr. "It's a snapshot," New ers tested positive and all
deaths, the medical direc- ers who have developed Ashish Jha, director of the Hampshire Health Care are either now housed in
tor said testing of all resi- good relationships with Harvard Global Health In- Association President Bren- a special section of the
dents was delayed nearly their local hospitals and stitute. dan Williams said of the building or quarantined at
two weeks because of a health departments seem The federal Health & Hu- national piecemeal ap- home. There have been no
shortage of testing supplies to have better luck," said man Services Department proach. "We need a mo- more deaths.
and bureaucratic require- Laxton, whose organiza- told The Associated Press tion picture." In the Seattle area, which
ments. By the time they did, tion represents more than that "there are plenty of While the federal govern- had the nation's first ma-
the spread was out of con- 50,000 long-term care pro- tests and capability for all" ment promised this week to jor nursing home outbreak
trol, with 92 residents posi- fessionals. "Those that are priority categories and that start tracking and publicly that eventually claimed 43
tive. not at the table must fend all should be tested. The releasing nursing home in- lives, health officials are tar-
Mark Parkinson, CEO of for themselves." agency also noted one of fections and deaths, which geting their testing efforts
the American Health Care Public health officials have President Donald Trump's could help identify hot- on homes that have shown
Association, which repre- long argued that current briefings this week in which spots, that work was only little sign of the disease.
sents long-term care facili- measures like temperature he underscored the states' beginning. In the mean- Their plans for testing at 19
ties, says "only a very small checks aren't sufficient. role in coordinating testing. time, The AP's own tally from such facilities are aimed at
percentage" of residents They can't stop workers Only one governor, West state health departments trying to head off hotspots
and staff have been tested with the virus who aren't Virginia's Jim Justice, ap- and media reports put the by quickly identifying and
because the federal and showing signs from walking pears to be mandating count at 11,128 deaths containing cases. In con-
state governments have in the front door, and they testing for all nursing homes from outbreaks in nursing junction with ramped-up
not made nursing homes don't catch such asymp- without conditions. Detroit homes and long-term care capacity for tracing con-
the top priority. tomatic carriers among res- Mayor Mike Duggan or- facilities nationwide. About tacts of patients, it's con-
"We feel like we've been idents either. What is need- dered tests at all 26 nursing a third of those are in New sidered an important pre-
ignored," Parkinson said. ed is rigorous and frequent in the city, using new kits York. requisite to reopening he
"Certainly now that the testing — "sentinel surveil- that can spew out results in New York Gov. Andrew economy.q