COVID-19 hospital deaths among NY’s long-term care facility residents push death toll much higher than previously disclosed, new data show

After months of delay, a critical report by the state attorney general and a court order, the N.Y. State Health Department has finally begun reporting COVID-19 fatality data for residents of nursing homes, adult care facilities and assisted living facilities who died after being transferred to hospitals.

The new data, posted online Saturday, indicates nursing home deaths are 45% higher than previously reported by the state, with 4,080 nursing home residents succumbing to COVID-19 in hospitals between March 1 and Feb. 5, bringing total fatalities to 13,217. However, the state is still not reporting any data at all for 61 of the 617 licensed skilled nursing facilities in New York.

Before Saturday, the state had reported fatality data for residents of just 83 adult care facilities across the state, where, as of Feb. 4, it said 219 residents had died of COVID-19.

On Saturday, the data reported included 174 adult care facilities. It also included 140 assisted living facilities, which had not previously been included in the state’s fatality data. Both data sets included deaths in hospitals as well as within the facilities.

The fatality numbers skyrocketed. The state reported 1,735 deaths among residents of adult care and assisted living facilities, with 1,516 of those deaths in hospitals. Of the 1,516 fatalities, 1,114 were residents of facilities that had no reported COVID deaths on site.

For months, the State Health Department resisted releasing data on nursing home residents who died after being transferred to hospitals. State Health Commissioner Dr. Harold Zucker said the agency was auditing the data provided by nursing homes.

Empire Center, a state government watchdog group, made a Freedom of Information Law to the State Health Department seeking “records of COVID-19-related deaths of residents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, including those who died while physically outside homes.”

The health department did not provide the records requested, claiming that it needed more time to find and review the documents. The Empire Center appealed the first postponement, but the health department’s records access appeals officer denied the appeal. The Empire Center then sued to compel the agency to produce the records. In the interim, the health department postponed its response two more times and in January said it required until March 22 to fulfill the request.

On Wednesday, a State Supreme Court justice in Albany ruled that the health department violated the state’s Public Officers Law, which governs records access and the process for Freedom of Information Law requests.

“DOH does not, in the court’s opinion, offer an adequate explanation as to why it has not responded to that request within its estimated time period or to date… The court is not persuaded that the respondent’s estimated date for responding to Empire Center’s FOIL request is reasonable under the circumstances of the request,” wrote Acting Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O’Connor.

The court ordered the agency to disclose the requested information to Empire Center within five business days of the Feb. 3 order.

On Jan. 28, State Attorney General Letitia James issued a critical report stating that an investigation by her office found the state had underreported the number of nursing home resident deaths from COVID-19 by as much as 50%. Later that day, the health commissioner for the first time released data on nursing home resident deaths in hospitals.

The data released in response to the AG’s report put the number of nursing home deaths, including the hospital deaths, at just under 13,000 as of Jan. 19. The revised numbers “pushed New York’s COVID-19 mortality rate in nursing homes from 35th to 13th highest in the U.S., the Empire Center said its analysis showed. The new total amounts to 14% of New York’s pre-pandemic nursing home population, which is 2 points above the national average, the group said.

New York’s practice of excluding hospital deaths is not a practice followed by any other state, according to Bill Hammond, senior fellow for health policy at the Empire Center.

Hammond said in a statement released this afternoon that the additional data published by the state this weekend “give a fuller picture of the pandemic’s overall impact, but fall far short of what the court ordered the department to release.”

The Empire Center requested death counts for each day and in each facility, as the state has been collecting them throughout the pandemic, Hammond said.

“Among other things, these numbers would allow a closer analysis of the impact of the Health Department’s March 25 policy memo compelling nursing homes to admit coronavirus-positive patients,” he said.

So far, the department has provided only cumulative totals for each facility.

Reported deaths among nursing home residents in hospitals boosted the death toll in Suffolk County by one-third. There were 384 previously unreported hospital deaths among nursing home residents in Suffolk. That brought the total number of fatalities to 1,309 as of Saturday.

Fatalities among local area nursing homes rose significantly in some cases when hospital deaths were included in the total. Deaths among residents of Acadia Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Riverhead nearly doubled, from 20 to 39. Deaths at Oasis Rehabilitation and Nursing in Center Moriches nearly tripled, rising from 12 to 34. Hospital deaths added 10 to the total at Westhampton Care Center, bringing the death toll there to 33 as of Feb. 6. San Simeon in Greenport added three hospital deaths, bringing its total fatalities to four. Peconic Landing in Greenport added two hospital deaths to its total of nine. Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton recorded one hospital death, bringing its total fatalities to 29. Peconic Bay Medical Center’s skilled nursing facility did not add any hospital deaths to its total of 20 deaths since March 1.

There were 266 fatalities among adult care and assisted living facilities in Suffolk as of Feb. 5. Previously the state had reported only 45 deaths at adult care facilities in Suffolk; that number rose to 98. The state was not reporting any data for assisted living facilities.

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