Nursing Home Residents Account for 40% of COVID-19 Deaths in U.S.

Nursing home residents have accounted for 35-40 percent of all COVID-19 deaths in the US since the coronavirus pandemic started. That's a big number, given that just 0.45 percent of the entire U.S. population is made up of 1.5 million people living in nursing homes.

What states have seen the most nursing home deaths from coronavirus? We rated all 50 using data obtained from the COVID-19 Public File of the Nursing Home, which includes data recorded to the National Healthcare Safety Network of the CDC. This information shares information on the facility capacity of the nursing homes, resident effects, the number of supplies and protective equipment, as well as their ventilator capacity. With coronavirus nursing home fatality rates of more than 100 deaths per 1,000 nursing home residents, four states in the Northeast were at the top of the list.

For every 1,000 nursing home patients, Massachusetts was the state with the highest coronavirus nursing home fatality rate, with 124 deaths. It was also found that the state of Massachusetts had one of the highest rates of infection with coronavirus in nursing homes, with 337.4 cases per 1,000 people. 

New Jersey nursing homes have found themselves a near second because of their high coronavirus mortality rate, 122.6 per 1,000 residents. New Jersey was also found to have the highest rate of COVID-19 cases by state in the world, with 359.2 people testing positive for every 1,000 residents in the nursing home.

The U.S. States Ranked by Their Coronavirus Nursing Home Fatality Rate per 1,000 Nursing Home Residents

1. Massachusetts: 124.0
2. New Jersey: 122.6
3. Connecticut: 102.5
4. Rhode Island: 102.0
5. Louisiana: 66.8
6. Pennsylvania: 60.9
7. Delaware: 57.5
8. Maryland: 55.9
9. Illinois: 52.6
10. New York: 48.5
11. Michigan: 47.2
12. Indiana: 46.7
13. Arizona: 42.6
14. Mississippi: 42.4
15. New Hampshire: 40.2
16. Georgia: 39.6
17. Alabama: 36.9
18. South Carolina: 34.9
19. California: 33.8
20. Florida: 30.1
21. Colorado: 29.8
22. New Mexico: 29.3
23. Virginia: 27.1
24. Washington: 27.0
25. Nevada: 25.9
26. Ohio: 25.2
27. Texas: 25.0
28. Kentucky: 23.5
29. North Carolina: 22.7
30. Minnesota: 20.1
31. Iowa: 19.1
32. Nebraska: 16.9
33. Arkansas: 15.7
34. Idaho: 15.3
35. Utah: 14.6
36. Montana: 13.8
37. Vermont: 11.3
38. Oklahoma: 10.8
39. Kansas: 10.1
40. Wisconsin:10.1
41. Tennessee: 7.3
42. Maine: 7.2
43. West Virginia: 5.9
44. North Dakota: 5.6
45. South Dakota: 4.7
46. Oregon: 2.9
47. Montana: 1.5
48. Wyoming: 1.5
49. Hawaii: 0.3
50. Alaska: 0.0