COVID-19 Update: Big Move in Nursing Home Deaths

From today’s data updates…
Confirmed COVID-19 cases: 555
New hospitalizations: 53
Deaths: 16
Deaths in long-term care facilities: 55

Wait, what? How can the Virginia Department of Health report 16 news deaths overall but 55 in long-term care facilities? It appears that VDH is revising the way it reports and classifies its numbers. Whatever the reason, the total number of nursing home deaths hit the 1,000 mark yesterday. That’s out of 1,602 deaths total. The revision — adding 95 deaths to the nursing-home toll in the past two days — bumps up the percentage of total deaths associated with long-term care facilities to 62%.

Repeat after me: The COVID-19 epidemic in Virginia is largely a nursing-home epidemic.

Wise King Ralph has indicated that he will move Virginia to Phase 3 of his lockdown as early as next week, depending on…. well, that’s not entirely clear. He has indicated that he has added a new criterion: what’s happening in neighboring states. So, we’ll just have to wait and see.

— JAB