More than 68,000 COVID-19 cases and 16,000 related deaths in US nursing homes may have gone uncounted because they occurred before federal guidelines required facilities to report case and death data in late May 2020, suggests a study yesterday in JAMA Network Open.Led by a Harvard University researcher, the study compared the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths reported by 15,415 nursing homes in 20 states to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) with those reported to state departments of health by May 24, 2020.
Analysis took place from December 2020 to May 2021.Until May 24, more than 3 months after the first US COVID-19 nursing home outbreak at the Life Care Center in Kirkland,