More than 201,000 residents and staff of long-term care facilities have died of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, an analysis published Feb. 3 by the Kaiser Family Foundation found.
Researchers used state and federal data sources between March 2020 and January 2022. Between March 2020 and June 2021, the total number of deaths is based on state-reported long-term care facility data, which totaled 187,000 resident and staff deaths.
For the subsequent period between July 2021 and January 2022, researchers incorporated data reported to the federal government by nursing facilities, excluding other types of long term-care facilities, to add 14,000 resident and staff deaths
Researchers noted the total is likely an undercount since it excludes deaths in long-term care settings other than nursing homes after June 30, and not all states reported data on all types of long-term care facilities before June 2021.