COVID-positive Admissions Were Correlated with Higher Death Rates in New York Nursing Homes

Excerpt:

The admission of coronavirus-positive patients into New York nursing homes under March 25 guidance from the New York State Department of Health was associated with a statistically significant increase in resident deaths.

The data show that each new admission of a COVID-positive patient correlated with .09 additional deaths, with a margin of error (MOE) of plus or minus 0.05.

Further, admitting any number of new COVID-positive patients was associated with an average of 4.2 additional deaths per facility (MOE plus or minus 1.9).

The effect was more pronounced upstate—possibly because the pandemic was less severe in that region at the time, so that even a single exposure would have had a larger impact on the level of risk.

Author(s): Bill Hammond, Ian Kingsbury

Publication Date: 18 February 2021

Publication Site: Empire Center for Public Policy