Another PA Vet Dies in Pandemic

By Walter F. Roche

Another Pennsylvania veteran living in a state run veterans nursing home has passed away from the coronavirus pushing the total of deaths in the six facility system to 15.
New data released by the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs also show 31 employees at the state facilities have tested positive for Covid-19.
Twenty-three residents, including the 15 who died, also tested positive, according to Joan Nissley, spokeswoman for the agency.
Though the agency declined to disclose the exact facilities where the Covid-19 deaths occurred, the majority of the deaths were reported at the 238-bed Southeastern Veterans Center in Spring City Chester County.
Other state veterans nursing home facilities are located in Erie, Pittsburgh, Hollidaysburg, Scranton and Philadelphia.
State run nursing homes for veterans in other states have shown high numbers of Covid-19 deaths. Those include Massachusetts, New Jersey and Alabama.
Data from U.S. Veterans Administration shows large numbers of veterans have died from the virus in several geographic areas including Southeastern Louisiana where 33 deaths were reported among 455 veterans who tested positive for Covid-19. In East Orange, N.J. 44 veterans died from among 425 who tested positive. In the Bronx, N.Y. 439 veterans tested positive and 45 of them died.
The pandemic has hit not only nursing homes for veterans but nursing homes all over the country though some state officials have declined to give specifics.
Tennessee health officials, responding to media requests, today made public the names of nursing homes where patients diagnosed with Covid-19 and the number of those patients who died.
The list includes a facility once run by the city of Nashville, Nashville Community Care and Rehabilitation at Bordeaux, where 25 patients tested positive for the virus. The Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing reported that 161 patients were infected by the virus and 21 died.
According to the report some 478 patients at 25 Tennessee nursing homes tested positive for Covid-19 and 44 of those patients have died.