(WWJ) Nursing homes have been a cause for deep concern in metro Detroit amid the coronavirus crisis.
Officials say more than 120 nursing home residents and workers have died of COVID-19 in the city of Detroit; and more than 100 more have died in nursing homes elsewhere in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties.
Detroit and the state are expected to release detailed information later this week, or early next week, including the names of nursing homes with outbreaks; and how many cases and deaths have been reported at each nursing home.
The state, meanwhile, has pledged $300,000 to Detroit to help with their work at nursing homes.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says these nursing home deaths continue to "add to the heartbreak" in Detroit; and it's expected that one out of five COVID-19 victims in the city will be from nursing homes.
The mayor said testing will wrap up at the city's nursing homes this week. Four workers from the U.S. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) are in Detroit helping with the testing program.
"We're showing now 124 deaths in nursing homes; I'm sure that number is dramatically understated when the data starts to catch up," Duggan said. "If you can't do rapid testing you have no way to fight the spread of the coronavirus in nursing homes — and it's gotta be expanded."
As of Tuesday, Denise Fair, chief public health officer at the Detroit Health Department, said 1,300 residents and staff at nursing homes in the city had been tested, and the infection rate was found to be about 26%.
"We're finding almost as many a-symptomatic nursing home patients who have COVID-19 then those who are showing symptoms," Duggan said. "So that's the reason that we're seeing the nursing home deaths across the country, is because so many people have the virus and don't show symptoms."
This comes as Duggan said drive-thru testing of essential of workers who do not have symptoms of COVID-19 has been underway at the former Fairgrounds site in Detroit since Monday. (Want to get tested? Get info here).
Around 80% of COVID-19 deaths in Michigan have been people age 60 and over.
