Latest Nursing Home COVID-19 Data From CMS, CDC and NHSN

Posted in COVID-19, Senior Living

Mary Madison, RN, RAC-CT, CDP
Clinical Consultant – Briggs Healthcare

CMS has posted the nursing home COVID-19 data for the week ending August 30, 2023.

Comparing the August 30th data to the August 6th data (24 days apart):

  • Residents up to date with the vaccines decreased 0.1%
  • Staff up to date with the vaccines remains the same (has for past 6+ weeks)
  • An additional 15,234 resident cases were reported as of August 30th (nearly doubled since 8/6)
  • An additional 581 resident deaths were reported as of August 30th (more than doubled) and
  • An additional 12,024 staff cases were reported as of August 30th (nearly doubled since 8/6)

For a listing of vaccination rates for individual nursing homes, click here. The information comes up in an Excel spreadsheet entitled: Recent Facility Resident and Staff Vaccination Rates and Other Data, as reported for week ending 08/06/23. It looks identical to the spreadsheets we saw prior to the declared end of the PHE on May 11, 2022.

As of May 11, 2023, COVID-19 Community Levels (CCLs) and COVID-19 Community Transmission Levels are no longer calculatable; associated visualizations have been removed from COVID Data Tracker. The “COVID-19 Integrated County View” tab has been renamed “COVID-19 Vaccinations by County.” County-level hospitalization data will be available at COVID-19 Hospitalizations, Deaths, and Emergency visits by Geographic Area.

The above was posted August 28, 2023 with data through August 19, 2023.

Note the upward trend in hospitalizations and deaths: +18.8% and +21.4% in the past week. Those are significant increases.

Note more color on this map from previous reports.  Several more medium and more high rates of hospitalizations in counties.  See this August 18, 2023 blog for comparison.

The NHSN Nursing Home COVID-19 Data Dashboard shows this data as of August 28, 2023 at 5:30am ET:

The uptick of COVID-19 cases in nursing homes began in mid-July 2023.

Now is not the time to ignore COVID-19 in the communities we live and work in.  The virus is still with us and its presence is increasing.  Continue and increase your efforts to keep COVID-19 out of your facility, especially now as we’re moving into the flu season and we also have to be vigilant for RSV.   Infection prevention and control are challenging but we must continue every effort to keep residents, staff and visitors safe.