We all know that COVID-19 was not kind to the senior care industry. But we also have to be vigilant in communicating that it wasn’t as bad as the media portrayed it to be, at least with regard to mortality rates. Even the most respected media outlets, whether in print or on television, made it sound like all senior care facilities were death traps. This was all far from the truth.
The reality is that slightly more than 50% of all facilities nationwide, from skilled nursing to assisted living to independent living, never experienced a COVID death. This is according to a study by NORC at the University of Chicago sponsored by NIC. Now, if they had been able to remove from the numbers those who died “with” COVID, meaning they most likely died of an existing health condition but happened to contract COVID in the waning days or even weeks of their life so were classified as a COVID death, then the percentage of communities without a death would surely rise. Perhaps our friends at NORC can work on that next year to set the record straight.
As would have been expected, the higher the acuity, the lower the percentage with no deaths. As an example, “only” 39% of SNFs experienced no deaths. Given the frailty of the residents in your average nursing facility, that is actually quite remarkable. As acuity levels declined, so did the death rates. In the memory care world, 61% of the communities experienced no deaths; for assisted living it was 64% and independent living it was 67%. That is actually a compelling story to get out there because given COVID’s effect on the elderly, especially those with co-morbidities, not many of us thought that the percentage of death-free communities would be so high. Especially not if you your only source was mainstream media, which loves scary headlines for ratings.
In addition, the study found that average COVID mortality rates in assisted living (19.3 per 1,000) were one-third of those in skilled nursing (59.6 per 1,000). Memory care (50.4 per 1,000), however, was much closer to skilled nursing, which implies that people with dementia have a lot of other issues besides dementia, or that COVID has a much more apparent impact on those suffering from dementia. And, death levels in independent living (5.9 per 1,000) were lower than in their surrounding county (6.7 per 1,000). Let’s spread the word.
Assuming, and that is a big assumption, that we are beginning to put COVID in the rearview mirror, it will be important for the industry to get the facts out, and as we have been saying, in the future, senior living communities may be the safest place to be in a future pandemic.
