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Tracking the Coronavirus at U.S.
Nursing Homes & Long-Term Care Facilities

Last update: June 1, 2021 at 11:59:27 P.M. ET

At least 184,000 coronavirus deaths have been reported among residents and employees of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities for older adults in the United States, according to a New York Times database. As of June 1, the virus has infected more than 1,383,000 people at some 32,000 facilities.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nursing home facilities within the United States have been hit the hardest. Older populations are more susceptible to contracting SARS-CoV-2, the virus the causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As the CDC notes, facilities with that have poor ventilation and many people congregated into one facilities allows the virus to spread quicker among populations.

According to a New York Times database, four percent of the United States cases have been linked to long-term care facilities, and deaths related to COVID-19 within these facilities account for thirty-one percent of the country’s deaths. Furthermore, deaths in long-term care facilities accounted for more than a third of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States. At the largest vaccination campaign is currently underway, the early months on 2021 saw a steep decline in COVID-19 deaths.

The share of deaths linked to long-term care facilities for older adults is even greater at the state level. In five states, the number of residents and workers who have died accounts for either half or more than half of all deaths from the virus.

Infected people linked to nursing homes also die at a higher rate than the general population. The median case fatality rate — the number of deaths divided by the number of cases — at facilities with reliable data is 10 percent, significantly higher than the 2 percent case fatality rate nationwide, says a study from a New York Times COVID database.

Facility Fatality Rates are Much Higher Than the National Average

Number of long-term care facilities by case fatality rate.

The U.S. case fatality rate is 2%.

The median case fatality rate in long-term care facilities is 10%.

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Note: Only facilities with reliable case and death data and at least 50 cases are included.

Currently, there is a no national tracking system for documenting COVID-19 cases and deaths at long-term care facilities for older adults. For this page, I am using data from a New York Times database, which documents nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, memory care facilities, retirement and senior communities and rehabilitation facilities cases and deaths. Some states, such as Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey and South Carolina, regularly release cumulative data on cases and deaths on their state dashboards for specific facilities. Some states provide number of cases for specific locations, however figures for deaths aren’t shown for some. For the state of New York, the 56th Governor Andrew Mario Cuomo’s administration was accused of covering up tens of thousands of nursing home deaths — “state officials do not include staff cases or deaths in their reports”. Other states have provided aggregated date for cumulative cases and deaths.

The map and table below showing coronavirus cases at individual nursing homes were last updated as recently as Jan. 12, 2021. The map displays 900 of 5,892 facilities in the U.S. reported.

The data in the datable below are official confirmations from states, counties and the facilities themselves, as well as some data provided by the federal government retrieved from a New York Times database. Note that the totals shown are an undercount for the true toll of the virus.

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