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Why Did COVID Deaths Increase in Nursing Homes Just After the COVID Vaccines Were Released?

Why are some people questioning why COVID deaths increased in nursing homes just after the COVID vaccines were released?

It didn’t very take long to figure out why COVID deaths increased at Apple Valley Village and other nursing homes after COVID vaccines were rolled out…

The usual suspects…

Why Did COVID Deaths Increase in Nursing Homes Just After the COVID Vaccines Were Released?

The only real question here is whether Steve Kirsch will correct all of his posts after we explain what happened at Apple Valley Village…

“The stunning thing that is undeniable is that over a 2 month period (from the start of the year to the week ending 3/7/21), 153 residents died in a facility that had an average occupancy of less than 100 beds over that 2 month period. That’s a stunning death rate. The only thing that was “unusual” was the introduction of the vaccine.”

Apple Valley Village Health Care Center saw >7X higher COVID death rates after COVID vax rollout. Wasn’t it supposed to decrease rates?

So why did we see an increase in COVID deaths just after the COVID vaccines were released?

Notice anything at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 that might have caused a lot of COVID deaths, just after the first COVID vaccines were rolled out?

It’s kind of easy to explain if you look at when COVID hit our nursing homes, isn’t it?

What else was going up around the time of the COVID vaccine rollout – COVID cases! And that explains the increase in COVID deaths that Steve Kirsch tries to blame on COVID vaccines.

COVID cases were peaking in many nursing homes just as we were getting our first COVID vaccines in December 2020.

While this is all incredible to Steve Kirsch, it is all explained in the FAQ to the COVID-19 Nursing Home Data he was using.

It is also easy to explain how Steve Kirsch found more COVID deaths than COVID cases in the data.

“The CMS website may show more COVID-19 deaths than confirmed COVID-19 cases because the total number of COVID-19 deaths may also include cases of residents with suspected COVID-19 infection and COVID-19 admissions (residents with COVID-19 that are newly admitted or re-admitted to the nursing home), which are reported separately from the nursing home’s count of confirmed COVID-19 cases. For example, a nursing home may show 20 deaths with 10 confirmed COVID-19 cases, but also have an additional 20 COVID-19 admissions and 20 suspected COVID-19 cases (totaling 50 residents with confirmed or suspected COVID-19, including COVID-19 positive admissions, which resulted in 20 COVID-19-related deaths).

Additionally, it is possible that the nursing home did not have retrospective confirmed COVID-19 case data available at the time of reporting, but they did have and report retrospective COVID-19 death data. The National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) COVID-19 Long-Term Care Facility Module allows, but does not require, facilities to report retrospective COVID-19 data from January 1, 2020 to April 30, 2020.

These numbers may also be due to a data entry error on the part of the facility – for example, a facility may be entering cumulative numbers of confirmed COVID-19 deaths instead of incremental new deaths, or entering data in an incorrect field.”

COVID-19 Nursing Home Data FAQs

But how could there be more cases and deaths than beds in the nursing home?

Remember, Steve Kirsch posted that he found that:

“…over a 2 month period (from the start of the year to the week ending 3/7/21), 153 residents died in a facility that had an average occupancy of less than 100 beds over that 2 month period. That’s a stunning death rate. The only thing that was “unusual” was the introduction of the vaccine.”

Apple Valley Village Health Care Center saw >7X higher COVID death rates after COVID vax rollout. Wasn’t it supposed to decrease rates?

What else can explain these numbers besides the fact that this is about the time that COVID cases began to surge?

“The nursing home data posted reflects cumulative cases and deaths of COVID-19 reported in a facility. A nursing home may report more confirmed COVID-19 cases than beds because they may encounter a large number of admissions and discharges of residents with COVID-19, resulting in more cumulative cases of COVID-19 over time than the number of beds at any one time.”

COVID-19 Nursing Home Data FAQs

He doesn’t mention it in any of his posts, but it is all explained in the FAQs to the dataset he is using.

There is one thing that Steve Kirsch is right about.

“And it’s why you should share this article with your friends and ask them to please explain to you how that shows that the vaccines worked.”

Apple Valley Village Health Care Center saw >7X higher COVID death rates after COVID vax rollout. Wasn’t it supposed to decrease rates?

The COVID-19 Nursing Home Data clearly shows that COVID vaccines worked!

As deaths were surging in nursing homes in December 2020, not surprisingly, few residents had yet been vaccinated and protected. They were by the time of that second surge though, when there were far fewer deaths.

Even though they got priority, many nursing home residents didn’t get a COVID vaccine until January 2021 and weren’t fully vaccinated until February or later.

If COVID vaccines are correlated with deaths, as Steve Kirsch says, then why were so few nursing home residents vaccinated when deaths were surging in December 2020?

Just look at how far fewer nursing home residents died in that second surge when many were vaccinated and protected!

No matter how much Steve Kirsch tries to confuse things, the data is clear.

“From late December to early February, new cases among nursing home residents fell by more than 80 percent, nearly double the rate of improvement in the general population. The trendline for deaths was even more striking: Even as fatalities spiked over all this winter, deaths inside the facilities have fallen, decreasing by more than 65 percent.”

Nursing Homes, Once Hotspots, Far Outpace U.S. in Covid Declines

COVID vaccines clearly worked very well in nursing homes.

“Facilities with higher resident vaccination rates experienced lower average COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in US nursing homes.”

Association of COVID-19 Vaccination Rates and Facility Characteristics on COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations, and Deaths in US Nursing Homes

Just as they are safe and effective for everyone else too.

Once again, let’s thank Steve Kirsch for reminding us that vaccines work and that they are necessary!

More on Steve Kirsch

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