AARP Report Finds Nursing Homes Faring Worse With Pandemic Now Than When It Began
Download mp3 (9.1 MB)Arizona still appears to be in the throes of the pandemic. State health officials added 9,398 new coronavirus cases and another 244 deaths to its daily dashboard Jan. 21.
That brings the total number of cases in the state to just short of 700,000.
Suspected coronavirus hospitalizations, however, fell again. But Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed use overall remains at 92%.
Nearly a year into the pandemic, nursing homes in our state are faring worse than they were at the beginning — not better.
According to the AARP, the rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the state's nursing homes has spiked in the last three months.
Their latest Nursing Home COVID-19 Dashboard shows new confirmed cases went up from 1.1 per 100 residents to 14.3 per 100 residents in the last three months of 2020. And cases among staff increased nearly as sharply.
The Show spoke with AARP Arizona Director Dana Marie Kennedy for more about how they're faring.
