Duggan believes about 10% of nursing home residents in Detroit will die of COVID-19
DETROIT (FOX 2) - The State of Michigan will soon be releasing information on COVID-19 cases that spread in nursing homes.
Meanwhile, a partnership between the Detroit and the CDC is expected to wrap up testing of Detroit nursing homes and residents Thursday.
Based on testing done so far, one in four nursing home residents has COVID-19 in Detroit. Mayor Mike Duggan said all 2,000 nursing home residents in the city and many working in those facilities should be tested by Thursday afternoon.
“We’ll see what the final death statistics are but they’re going to be terrible. One out 10 or one out of 12 of the nursing residents in this city, I suspect when the numbers are done, will have died of COVID-19," Duggan said Thursday.
A full report is expected Monday for the 26 facilities and is expected to be publicly released Tuesday.
“It really drives home the point of why this country needs rapid testing," Duggan said.
Across the state, most nursing homes are also now reporting their numbers and so many have similar stories.
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One woman whose 101-year-old mother tested positive for COVID-19 shared her family's story with us.
“It appears that a number of people have died, including a nurse. So the information they were giving us about the impact of COVID-19 at the facility was a complete lie," Megan O'Brien said.
Her mother, born during the Spanish flu pandemic, is at Four Chaplains Nursing Home in Westland. O'Brien was worried her mom might get the coronavirus, and she found out just this week her mother tested positive.
“Had we known we would have taken her out and we didn’t get that opportunity."
Right now, nursing homes have to report resident and patient COVID-19 infections to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, but not staff cases.
They plan to begin providing nursing home data Friday.