In Texas, state with most nursing homes, experts fear for elderly amid coronavirus surge.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has recommended that states including Texas, Arizona and Florida pause their reopenings amid a rise in COVID-19 cases.The senior citizens who populate Texas nursing homes were not jammed into bars or packed onto beaches on Memorial Day, but officials there now fear thatthat began spreading among younger people over the past month is imperiling the lives of the state’s most vulnerable.
Derrick L. Neal is the executive director of Williamson County and Cities Health District in Texas, near Austin. That district is home to Trinity Care Center, the facility in Texas that has reported one the highest number of fatalities to the federal government. In mid-June the facility had reported 138 resident deaths.
In part, that is because national statistics have not fully accounted for some of the fatalities during the early days of the pandemic. Local news outlets in Texasthat nursing homes in Texas have been among the worst in reporting conditions to federal officials tracking the outbreak. Representatives for the Texas Department of State Health Services did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment for this report. The Texas governor has previously stated that protecting seniors in nursing facilities is a priority and earlier this month encouraged nursing homes to apply to receive parts of over $9 million in federal funding being allocated to Texas nursing homes.
Neal said he’s also concerned that staff, many of whom are low paid and lack the luxury of social distancing in their own living situations, are proving to be a vulnerability in the chain of transmission.
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