‘A BETRAYAL OF THE
BOMBSHELL FINDINGS:
• State undercounted
assisted living home
deaths by 26 times
• 18 of assisted homes
had COVID • 131 care
facility
residents
died of
COVID in
Brooklyn
Report details death toll
at BK adult care facilities
A report reveals that more residents of Brooklyn’s adult care facilities
died of COVID-19 than originally reported. Photo by REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
ed s 21 Brooklyn
ed living homes
OVID deaths
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HOW TO REACH US
COURIER LIFE, F 2 EBRUARY 19-25, 2021
BY ROSE ADAMS
Last month, the New York
State Health Department reported
just fi ve confi rmed
COVID-19 deaths at Brooklyn’s
adult care facilities.
New data released last week,
however, increased that number
26 times — revealing that
the virus killed at least four
percent of the borough’s residents
in long-term care.
Out of the borough’s 21 assisted
living facilities and
adult homes — which provide
residential services for
adults with physical and mental
limitations — 18 have seen
residents die from COVID-19,
with 131 confi rmed fatalities
in total.
The new tally represents
around four percent of all the
available beds inside adult
care facilities in Brooklyn —
meaning that the percentage
of residents who died is likely
much higher, since the homes
were most likely not all at
maximum capacity.
The Department of Health
quietly uploaded the updated
count to its website on Feb.
6 after a judge ruled that the
state had to release all nursing
home data in response
to a Freedom of Information
Law request submitted by the
Empire Center for Public Policy,
an Albany-based think
tank.
To comply with the ruling,
the state updated its list of
COVID-19 deaths at long-term
care facilities to include the
number of residents who died
outside the facility, such as in
a local hospital. Previously,
the state had only published
the number of confi rmed and
presumed deaths onsite.
The inclusion of out-offacility
fatalities raised
the total death toll 63 percent
higher than it had been
just 10 days before, and particularly
boosted the death
count at assisted living facilities
and adult homes. Unlike
nursing homes, these
facilities have fewer medical
resources, forcing them
to send most residents with
life-threatening COVID-19
symptoms to the hospital. In
Brooklyn, only seven deaths
in adult care and assisted
living facilities occurred onsite.
Some of the most deaths in
Brooklyn come from three assisted
living facilities — Amber
Court of Brooklyn, a 224-
bed facility in Canarsie that
saw 19 deaths; Brooklyn Boulevard
ALP, a 184-bed facility
in Starrett City that saw 18
deaths; and Sunrise at Sheepshead
Bay, a 189-bed facility
with 16 deaths.
A “controversial” 176-
bed assisted living facility
in Coney Island, Oceanview
Manor Home for Adults, has
also seen 14 deaths, according
to the new report. The
facility’s parent company,
Gefen Senior Care, operates
four facilities across the state
that have reported 49 deaths
in total.
A spokesperson for Gefen
Senior Care maintains that
their facilities followed all of
the state’s COVID guidelines.
“We have followed all NYS
Department of Health (DOH)
guidelines,” Martin Hofman
said. “These regulated facilities
are subject to 24 hour a
day, 365 days a year, seven
days a week unannounced
NYSDOH inspections.”
The Department of Health
published the updated death
toll just weeks after Attorney
General Letitia James
released a report on nursing
homes deaths, which revealed
that the state had underre-
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