Nearly half of all COVID-19 deaths in Suffolk County have been residents in nursing homes or adult care facilities, according to new data published by New York State.
As of April 12, 236 residents in Suffolk nursing homes or adult care facilities died of COVID-19 — or 45.2% of 518 deaths of Suffolk residents as of that date.
Statewide, 2,438 nursing home and adult care facility residents have died as a result of coronavirus infections — 26% of all deaths in New York as of April 12.
“This is exactly the population the virus attacks so viciously,” Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said during a news briefing Tuesday afternoon.
The elderly are especially vulnerable to developing severe disease from the deadly virus. More than 64% of New York’s COVID-19 fatalities have been age 70 and older, according to data published by the State Health Department.
As the public health crisis continues, nursing home and adult care facility residents are accounting for a greater proportion of the daily deaths in the state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday during his daily news briefing.
There were 261 deaths of residents in nursing home and adult care facility Nassau County — 25% of the total number of fatalities there — during the same period (March 20 to April 12) according to the data.
In the five boroughs of New York City, 1,564 nursing home and adult care facility residents died of the disease in the same period — 25% of the total fatalities in New York City.
Bellone said he could not explain why Suffolk’s nursing home deaths represented a higher proportion of overall deaths than nursing home deaths in other downstate counties — 45% versus 25%.
There are 42 licensed nursing home and adult care facilities in Suffolk, according to Medicare.gov. Nassau has 37 such facilities. There are 171 nursing homes and adult care facilities in the five boroughs of New York City. Together the nursing homes in New York City and Long Island account for 85% of all nursing home COVID deaths in New York State.
The reported data include deaths of nursing home and adult care facility residents whether they died in the nursing/care facility or in a hospital.
State officials have declined to identify nursing homes where deaths occurred, citing privacy concerns. The state did not release separate data for nursing home fatalities until late Monday when it was posted online.
Individual nursing home/adult care providers have not released information about COVID-19 infections or deaths among their residents or staff. A notable exception has been the Peconic Landing life care facility in Greenport, where a per diem worker was one of Suffolk’s first confirmed COVID cases in early March. Other staff members and then residents contracted the disease, which lost nine residents to the disease between March 18 and April 4. The facility has not reported any additional confirmed cases or deaths since April 5.
Editor’s note: This story was updated April 15 with additional information .
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