More than 21 percent of the state’s nursing homes are reporting cases of COVID-19, according to a new list released by the California Department of Public Health on April 18. Coronavirus has sickened thousands of workers and residents at care facilities around the state.
Advocates have sought to know where those hotspots are because they said people need to make informed choices. Attorney Mike Dark with California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform says the newly released list is likely very incomplete. Fresno and Kern counties do not appear on it — though other big cities all report outbreaks, and the numbers are self-reported. Dark says state regulators have cut back on in-person visits to call facilities instead.
“One reason why these numbers that the state has aggregated are so unreliable is that there is literally no one else to confirm just how high the toll of the sick and the dying really is,” Dark said. Hundreds of thousands more Californians are in assisted living facilities: those outbreaks aren’t included on this list.