Legendary broadcast journalist Joan Lunden says it is important to distinguish the difference between senior living communities and nursing homes amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"A nursing home by definition is a place for the sickest, the most frail people to go, because they need 24-hour nursing care by a registered nurse," Lunden told Newsmax TV's "Greg Kelly Reports" on Thursday.
"Senior living environments don't have a registered nurse. I think the senior living community has by and large really done a great job. They closed their doors."
The most alarming coronavirus cases in some states are in nursing homes, including Louisiana, where more than 30% of the state's COVID-19 deaths are nursing home residents.
In Kirkland, Washington, a nursing home linked to dozens of coronavirus deaths was fined more than $600,000 for a range of problems in how the facility handled the outbreak.
"Senior living communities these days in today's world," says Lunden, the official spokesperson for A Place for Mom, "it's a breadth of different choices from active senior living to . . . assisted living.
"There's eight levels of assisted living when an elderly person just can't handle their daily needs anymore. Then you go into memory care and hospice. But nowhere in that range is there a place for nursing homes, because you could be in your 40s and have a really rough surgery and not be able to go back home, and you would have to go into a nursing home for care."
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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