Allegheny County surpasses 1,000 covid deaths linked to nursing homes

Allegheny County surpassed 1,000 covid deaths associated with long-term care facilities, according to data updated Wednesday by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Data shows three additional deaths in nursing homes or personal care homes, bringing the county’s total to 1,002 since the pandemic began last March.

Allegheny County has the second-most care home deaths in the state, trailing only Montgomery County with 1,078.

A report in The New York Times says 4% of the nation’s covid cases have occurred in nursing/long-term care facilities, while 33% of U.S. covid deaths are related to those facilities. In Pennsylvania, the numbers are much higher.

Pennsylvania has 12,915 covid deaths associated with those facilities to account for 51.5% of the state’s deaths. As far as cases, there were 69,255 cases among residents and 14,251 among employees, which translates to 8.1% of the state’s cases.

In Allegheny County, long-term care facility deaths related to covid account for 55.2% of the county’s death total. Covid cases among residents (5,529) and employees (2,280) amount to 9.1% of the county’s total cases.

Allegheny’s resident cases are more than 500 higher than the next closest county, Montgomery (4,936), while its employee cases are more than 2.5 times higher than the next closest county, Delaware (897).

According to The New York Times, Pennsylvania is one of nine states where at least half of the state’s covid deaths have been associated with those facilities: New Hampshire (71%), Minnesota (62%), Rhode Island (62%), North Dakota (59%), Connecticut (55%), Oregon (53%), Massachusetts (52%) and Maine (50%).

Westmoreland County is 16th in the state with 292 deaths linked to nursing homes (41.4%).