FEMA Sends Faulty Protective Gear to Nursing Homes Battling Virus

“We have received complaints on less than 1 percent of the total PPE shipments to nursing homes,” the statement said. “We continue to engage with nursing homes to keep lines of communication and feedback open at all times.”

FEMA subsequently acknowledged in an email that the contractor has been sending out a small number of the older gown models.

The controversy over inadequate and low-quality protective equipment has come to embody what public health experts and nursing home executives describe as a halting and haphazard federal effort to protect the 1.5 million Americans who live in nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

More than 40 percent of all coronavirus deaths in the United States have been tied to nursing homes, according to a New York Times analysis, which found that the virus had infected 316,000 people at 14,000 facilities as of July 15. The virus has been particularly lethal to those in their 60s and older, more so for those in poor health, and it can rapidly spread through buildings where residents live in close quarters and workers move from room to room.

“The federal response to protect one of the most vulnerable populations in the country has been a dismal failure,” said Tamara Konetzka, a health economist at the University of Chicago who has been studying the pandemic’s outsize impact on nursing home residents.