Nursing Home COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Dropping

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Skilled Nursing Facilities in Wyoming reported no new COVID-19 deaths or cases of COVID-19 among its residents or staff in the four-week period ending April 18. That is according to the AARP COVID-19 Nursing Home Dashboard, developed by The AARP Public Policy Institute, in collaboration with the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Ohio.

Wyoming was one of six states to report zero COVID-19-related deaths, according to the dashboard, along with Alaska, Rhode Island, Nevada, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia. Louisiana led the nation with a .23 per 100 nursing home residents death rate during the four week period ending April 18. Texas (.19), Indiana (.18), Iowa (.15), and Pennsylvania (.13) rounded out the top five states in terms of death rate of nursing home residents due to COVID-19.

Three states, including Wyoming, also reported no COVID-19 cases in nursing homes for the four-week period ending April 18. Idaho, and the District of Columbia also reported no cases of COVID-19 in nursing homes. Maine had the nation’s highest infection rate of nursing home residents with an average of 1.25 cases per 100 nursing home residents, far higher than even second place New York (.71). 

COVID-19 hurt Wyoming nursing homes the hardest in November of 2020 when the state hit highs for Nursing Home Resident Deaths (2.95 per 100 residents), Nursing Home Resident Cases (12.4 per 100 residents), Nursing Home Staff Cases (13 per 100 residents), and Staffing Shortages (63 percent of facilities reporting staffing shortages due to COVID-19). 

One area of continued concern for Wyoming is its nursing homes reporting a shortage of nurses or aides. The COVID-19 Nursing Home Dashboard suggests 37.5 percent of Wyoming nursing homes are self-reporting staffing shortages. That ranks Wyoming eighth in the nation for states with the highest percentage of staffing shortages. Minnesota (45.2 percent), and North Dakota (45.1 percent) have the nation’s highest percentage of staffing shortages for the four-week period ending April 18. California has the nation’s lowest percentage of staffing shortage at just 3.6 percent. 

National Trends

In the most recent month, these and other COVID-19 impacts remain at the lowest or nearly the lowest on record nationally since CMS began reporting data last spring.  Within the last month, however, improvement has stopped, and COVID-19 impacts on nursing homes, residents, and staff have remained constant or increased slightly throughout the last month.

• The rate of COVID-19 resident deaths in the four weeks ending April 18 was 0.09 per 100 residents, meaning that fewer than 1 out of every 1,000 residents died from COVID-19 in the last month. This rate is about 50 percent lower than in the four weeks ending March 21. However, the weekly rate of deaths has remained approximately constant throughout April, ending a streak of 15 consecutive weeks of decline.
  
  
  • The decline in deaths from the previous month was widespread, with only 5 states reporting small increases in the COVID-19 death rate in the four weeks ending April 19, compared to the previous four weeks.
• The rate of new COVID-19 resident cases in the most recent four weeks was 0.36 per 100 residents (about than 1 out of every 280 residents), a slight improvement from 0.46 per 100 residents in the previous four-week period.  However, the weekly rate of new cases has increased week to week in April, ending a streak of 15 consecutive weeks of decline.
  
  
  • One-third of states (17 states) saw an increase in the rate of COVID-19 resident cases in the four weeks ending April 18, compared to the previous four weeks.
• The rate of new staff cases was 0.90 per 100 residents (about 1 for every 110 residents). This is a slight increase from 0.77 per 100 residents in the previous four-week period. More than half of states (27 states) had an increase in the rate of staff cases compared to the previous four weeks.
• After improving significantly in the previous three months, the percentage of nursing homes with direct care staffing shortages remained approximately constant, with 22.6 percent (about 2 in 9) reporting a shortage of nurses or aides in four weeks ending April 18. At the state level, the percentage of nursing homes reporting shortages ranged from a low of 4% to a high of 45%.  
• About 1 in 20 nursing homes (5%) reported an urgent need for PPE during the four weeks ending April 18, meaning that the nursing home will deplete its supply of at least one type of PPE within 7 days.  There is considerable variation in PPE supply among states: in six states, no nursing homes had an urgent need, while 1 in 6 nursing homes had an urgent need in the most affected state.  This is a new dashboard measure, as the way that PPE shortages are defined in the source data has changed.  We will continue to track PPE shortages using the new measure in the coming months.  

About the Dashboard

The AARP Public Policy Institute, in collaboration with the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University in Ohio, created the AARP Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard to provide four-week snapshots of the virus’ infiltration into nursing homes and impact on nursing home residents and staff, with the goal of identifying specific areas of concern at the national and state levels in a timely manner. 

This dashboard looks at five categories of impact and will be updated every month to track trends over time. To see the dashboard online, go to:  https://www.aarp.org/ppi/issues/caregiving/info-2020/nursing-home-covid-dashboard.html?cmp=RDRCT-350d888f-20201013.