The global Covid-19 toll has affected more than one vulnerable population than any other: residents in nursing homes.
A Wall Street Journal review of data from more than two dozen countries with significant care centers for the elderly shows that these institutions are linked to more than a third of Covid-19 deaths, although they typically host less than 2% of the population. These countries related at least 233,000 of 641,000 general deaths for Covid-19 to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for the elderly. In the United States alone, the death toll from these facilities exceeds 125,000.
Nursing homes were a mild target for a highly contagious and deadly virus, as they house the most vulnerable and close people. Overall, the new coronavirus has been shown to be the most dangerous for the elderly, who have had the highest overall mortality rates.
But even among Covid-19-susceptible seniors, nursing homes proved only dangerous. An analysis published in November in the Journal of Post-Agute and Long-Term Care Medicine examined a dozen member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and found that the Covid-19 mortality rate among Long-term care residents was more than 20 times higher than that of older people living outside these facilities.
The devastating toll was not inevitable. Countries like South Korea managed to limit deaths among nursing home residents by avoiding widespread community outbreaks and moving quickly to prevent infections from spreading to the facility. Despite facing a recent increase in Covid-19 cases, the entire East Asian nation has still reported only about 70 deaths from long-term care in total. Eight states in the United States have reported more than 7,000 deaths.