MDH Data Shows Impact of Recent Community Spread on Long-Term Care

Posted on November 25, 2020 by Jeff Bostic

The recent surge of COVID-19 cases in Minnesota has had a significant impact on long-term care, after many months of reduced cases and deaths after the spring wave. The new wave has created unprecedented staffing challenges for providers due to infected and exposed staff needing to miss work, and the impact is being felt throughout the state as opposed to the mostly Twin Cities-based outbreaks in the spring. Deaths in long-term care have risen in recent months after being at very low levels for months.

The following table shows the MDH data on COVID-19 cases in long-term care facilities since the onset of the pandemic:

Facility Type	Total Resident Cases	Total Staff Cases	Avg Total Cases per Facility	Total Resident Deaths	Avg Deaths per Facility	% with Current Outbreak
Care Center	6,962	5,303	36.2	1,504	4.4	90
Assisted Living	3,385	2,252	7.6	556	0.8	58

The higher rate of cases in care centers compared to assisted living is likely in part due to the higher level of testing in those settings because of the federal mandate for surveillance testing. The same is true of the higher level of current outbreaks, which are defined as any staff or resident cases in the last two weeks. While outbreaks have hit most long-term care settings, the largest outbreaks have hit larger care centers in particular; 22 long-term care settings, all care centers, have had more than 100 total cases.

As cases have surged in the state in the last two months, there has also been a surge of cases on long-term care settings.  26% of the total long-term care cases have been identified since mid-September. Fortunately, improved treatments and other responses appear to have reduced the rate of deaths, as only 16% of long-term care deaths have occurred since mid-September. Long-term care settings are doing a better job of controlling the spread of COVID-19 than the general community. The state of Minnesota has confirmed roughly 200,000 new cases since mid-September, almost 70% of the total cases since the beginning of the pandemic.