COVID-19 deaths might have been underestimated

According to a new study, more than 16,000 COVID-19 deaths in U.S. nursing homes have likely been omitted from the official government death count. It suggests that 40 percent of resident deaths from the virus in the early months of the pandemic have not been captured. And that government data missed 44 percent of COVID-19 nursing home infections during the same time period, mainly in the country’s Northeast.

The missing fatalities add up to 14 percent of what the authors of the study estimate to be the true COVID-19 death toll among nursing home residents in 2020. More than 68,000 COVID-19 cases among residents also went unreported during those early months, accounting for almost 12 percent of total cases among nursing home residents in 2020. 

If added to the government’s official count, the study’s estimates would bring the total number of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents to more than 151,000. Total cases would increase to almost 750,000. 

“We felt compelled to make sure that, just because the federal government wasn't requiring any reporting of deaths that happened early in the pandemic, that those deaths were counted somehow,” says Karen Shen, study co-author.