The number of people living in or connected to nursing homes who have died of the coronavirus is at least 7,000, according to an article on The New York Times website.
Overall, about a fifth of deaths from the virus in the United States have been tied to nursing homes or other long-term care facilities, the Times review of cases showed.
And more than 36,500 residents and employees across the nation have contracted it.
“They’re death pits,” Betsy McCaughey said in the article. She is a former lieutenant governor of New York who founded the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, an education campaign aimed at stopping hospital-acquired infections. “These nursing homes are already overwhelmed. They’re crowded and they’re understaffed. One Covid-positive patient in a nursing home produces carnage.”