The lag in data collection is just one of a number of bottlenecks in the effort to slow the virus’ deadly spread in nursing homes across the U.S.
On April 19, Medicare Administrator Seema Verma took the podium at the White House’s daily coronavirus briefing to announce that the Trump administration would begin tracking outbreaks and deaths at long-term care facilities nationwide — and publish the numbers for everyone to see.
The effort would begin within days, federal officials promised.
More than two weeks and 13,000 long-term care deaths later, the federal government still has not tallied the number of nursing homes that have had outbreaks nationwide or the number of residents who have died. And the data is still weeks away from being made public, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, the federal agency that oversees nursing homes.