Detroit's Nursing Homes Are The Next Coronavirus Hot Spot
DETROIT ― A spike in the number of coronavirus cases in Detroit’s nursing homes is straining the region’s hospitals and is partially responsible for an uptick in the state’s already-high mortality rate. Now public health officials are working to head off the kind of facility-based outbreak that has killed hundreds of elderly nursing home residents in Seattle, New York and elsewhere.
Over the last week, Detroit Medical Center’s Sinai-Grace hospital saw a “huge increase” in nursing home resident admissions, the hospital’s chief geriatrician, Pragnesh Patel, told HuffPost.
DMC epidemiologist Teena Chopra called the growing mortality rate among the region’s nursing home population “astonishing.” She estimated that about 60% of coronavirus-infected residents who are admitted to metro Detroit hospitals die, and that the population accounts for at least 25% of the region’s overall coronavirus deaths. Those figures will likely continue climbing and “fuel the fire” during the next several weeks, Chopra said.
“The virus has infiltrated nursing homes in Detroit, and that’s why these patients who are the weakest part of society are being fed to DMC and neighboring hospitals,” she added. “These are the ones with much higher mortality rates, who push the overall rate higher.”
At his daily press conference on Tuesday, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said 14 nursing homes “have reported some rate of infection” as well as 12 deaths, although it’s unclear how extensive testing is within the facilities. Duggan also noted that there is about a week’s lag in reporting deaths. DMC doctors said they’ve seen the number of deaths jump during the last week, even if it’s not yet reflected in the official count.
Why Nursing Homes Are Uniquely Susceptible
The high caseloads in nursing homes are not at all surprising. The first big COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. was at a nursing home in the Seattle area, and public health...
