The vaccine isn't coming soon enough for nursing homes

A new COVID-19 spike in America’s long-term-care facilities emerged in the West and Northeast last week, with both regions reporting their highest numbers of new cases in the past six months. The Midwest and South saw a small downturn in new cases, which is promising, yet the week still saw the nation’s highest number of newly reported cases—51,574—in long-term-care facilities since we started collecting these data in May…

Last week, Minnesota reported its highest number of long-term-care-facility cases and deaths to date. Unlike many other states, Minnesota’s information is not traceable at the facility level. At the beginning of the summer, when Minnesota was reporting that about 80 percent of its COVID-19 deaths were from long-term-care facilities, officials refused to report cases and deaths at specific nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities, citing privacy concerns. Though Minnesota does provide a list of facility names with current COVID-19 outbreaks, more granular data—such as how many cases and deaths are occurring within each facility—are still not available.