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U.S. nursing homes have been plagued with infection control deficiencies even before the coronavirus pandemic turned them into hotspots for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, a government report said on Wednesday. Eighty-two percent of all nursing homes had an infection prevention and control deficiency cited in one or more years from 2013-2017, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. (5/20)

The stunning death toll has brought scrutiny to an industry that many believe is due for an overhaul. Questions about the way its paid for, staffing levels, adequate training for staff, effective regulations and oversight all are raging as states battle to control the ravages of the pandemic. "There's lots of hubbub" around nursing homes, says Dr. Louise Aronson, a geriatrician, professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco, and author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Elderhood. And it's important, she says, that the public keep that focus. (Jaffe, 5/21)

In the suburbs of Baltimore, workers at one nursing home said they were given rain ponchos to protect from infection. Twenty-seven employees at the facility, where most residents are African-American, tested positive for the coronavirus. One of the many black residents of a nursing home in Belleville, Ill., died in April amid a coronavirus outbreak. But his niece complained that he was never tested for the virus. In East Los Angeles, a staff member at a predominantly Latino nursing home where an outbreak emerged said she was given swimming goggles before professional gear could be obtained. She said she later tested positive for the virus. (5/21)

Nursing homes serving mostly minority populations are twice as likely to experience a deadly coronavirus outbreak as those with mostly white residents, according to new research on the devastating impact the highly contagious illness is having on vulnerable residential care facilities. “Our biggest predictor was race,” said R. Tamara Konetzka, a professor at the University of Chicago who led the study. “The higher percent white residents in a facility, the less likely that facility has had a single case or a single death.” (Pecorin and Mosk, 5/21)

The last time Claire Collins saw her family through the glass door of the nursing home in Bergen County, the 87-year-old woman looked weak but happy. As relatives huddled under an umbrella to stay dry, she sang “Singin’ in the Rain.” Three days later, on April 6, she was dead. Her daughter now agonizes over what she said she has learned from emails and other families since her mother died. Eighty percent of the residents of Atrium Post Acute Care at Park Ridge had coronavirus symptoms in mid-April, but only about a dozen had been tested because there were no supplies, Catherine Collins-Mullen said. (Livio and Sherman, 5/20)

Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced plans Tuesday to test every nursing home resident and worker in Arkansas for the coronavirus next month, meaning the state will add at least 40,000 tests - and possibly up to 50,000 - to its ongoing testing efforts in June. “This additional testing will better protect our nursing home residents and our staff,” Hutchinson said at his daily briefing on the spread of covid-19 in Arkansas. “And it will give confidence ... that we’re doing everything we can to make sure there is no spread or contagion in these facilities.” (Lynch, 5/19)

A Minnesota National Guard unit botched COVID-19 testing for 300 residents and staff members at a St. Paul nursing home Monday, leaving many with pain, discomfort and bloody noses. In what one health official acknowledged was “a disaster,” the test samples from Episcopal Church Home were later ruined because they were not stored in coolers while being transported to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. (Walsh, 5/20)