A new study confirms what we already knew: nursing homes suffered more than any other healthcare sector during the pandemic:
- Nursing home residents and staff account for 34% of all COVID-19 deaths, even though they make up less than 1% of the population.
- Partially because of the pandemic, the number of older adults living in nursing homes has dropped by more than 10%.
- Overall, the total number of staff working in nursing homes fell. However, staffing level increased in some regions of the country hardest hit by COVID-19.
- Staff workloads increased during the pandemic, and an hour of work before the pandemic didn’t go as far as an hour during the pandemic.
- Staff stress increased, driven in part by PPE shortages, fears of infection, and concerns about spreading the infection to other residents or to their own families.
