Our elderly population living in nursing homes has been a target of COVID-19 and now early vaccination. Was COVID-19 preying upon the weak and frail -- where some co-morbidities more likely to be problematic -- or were nursing home protocols, and the staff administering them, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
COVID-19 nursing home deaths
It's pretty clear by now that the statistics on COVID-19 are a hot mess. One news report quoted Betsy McCaughey, New York's former lieutenant governor, characterizing nursing homes as "death pits." Is the underlying problem something we should have known, or already measured? Or is this another healthcare disparity that we have chosen to ignore, which COVID-19 subsequently revealed? Let's take a look.