‘The Whole Place Is Sick Now’: 74 Deaths at a Home for U.S. Veterans (original) (raw)
New York|‘The Whole Place Is Sick Now’: 74 Deaths at a Home for U.S. Veterans
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/nyregion/new-jersey-military-veterans-home.html
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
Credit...Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
Half of New Jersey’s Covid-19 fatalities are linked to nursing homes. Nowhere has the devastation been starker than at one built for members of the military.
Credit...Bryan Anselm for The New York Times
- Published May 10, 2020Updated Sept. 25, 2020
The coronavirus has preyed on residents of nursing homes in New Jersey with lethal force, claiming 4,953 lives. Deaths at long-term care facilities now account for more than half of the state’s Covid-19 fatalities, well over the national rate.
But nowhere has the devastation been starker than at the New Jersey Veterans Home at Paramus, a state-run home for former members of the U.S. military, where on Tuesday 74 deaths had been linked to virus.
The home is built on the idea that those who served in the military are entitled to dignified care in their twilight years. Instead, in what some people have called a betrayal of this fundamental pact, the Paramus home is the site of one of the biggest coronavirus outbreaks in the country.
The virus has swept through the facility, which in late March had 314 residents, infecting 60 percent of its patients.
The list of the dead is almost certain to grow: Of the remaining 209 veterans and their spouses, 133 had either tested positive for the virus or were awaiting results. About one in five staff members has contracted the virus, and one employee has died.
“The whole place is sick now,” said Mitchell Haber, whose 91-year-old father, Arnold, an Army veteran, died last month at the home, which is about 12 miles northwest of New York City.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Advertisement