Skip to main content

Long-term Care Deaths

By January 6, 2021Commentary

Thanks to Phil Kerpen on Twitter for these charts showing LTC deaths in each state.   (Twitter Link)   I think comparability is somewhat limited due to different definitions of who is a long-term care resident, and then there is New York, which intentionally and misleading didn’t call it an LTC death if the resident didn’t die in the residence.  But it is clear that there are a lot of LTC deaths everywhere, likely even more than reported and that Minnesota is well above average, as we like to be, even in not-s0-good categories.  The other factor I keep pointing out is the presence of advance directives limiting care.  The percent of those vary significantly by state, and we really need that data to assess who truly died of CV-19 against their wishes and who died because they didn’t want care.

 

Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Matt R says:

    I believe when 2020 run out is done, indeed there will be a measurable level of “excess deaths” on an all-cause basis. Of course as you have so brilliantly pointed out, most of those in the age < 70 will be excess deaths due to lockdown/propaganda side effects. What will be very interesting will be mortality for the 70+ age cohort in 2021… might we see far fewer deaths than expected in this group in 2021 if COVID essentially 'fast forwarded' many of the deaths in this group that would have occurred within a matter of months.

  • Ken Higgins says:

    Kevin – given the health condition of LTC residents in normal times, what % of the population would be expected to die during this time frame (of all causes)? Just trying to understand whether we are pulling forward deaths that would happen in near-term anyway – not as helpful as % w/ DNRs, but the number of months of lives lost would be an interesting data point

    thanks

Leave a comment