What We Learned: A Remembrance — The COVID Tragedy Five Years Later, 05.26.26

Five years after COVID-19 swept through nursing homes and long-term care facilities across the United States, Gray Panthers NYC gathered advocates, family members, researchers, clergy, and long-term care leaders for a powerful conversation: A Remembrance: The COVID Tragedy Five Years Later.

https://youtu.be/FhpKPtUw79U 

The webinar served as both a memorial and a call to action. It revisited the 2021 Gray Panthers documentary Honoring Nursing Home Lives Lost, while asking an urgent question:

Have we learned enough to ensure this never happens again?

The answer, according to many speakers, is complicated.

While progress has been made, many of the systemic problems that contributed to the suffering and loss of life during the pandemic remain unresolved.

Behind Every Statistic Was a Human Being

The discussion began with a reminder that the tragedy of COVID in long-term care cannot be measured solely by numbers.

Residents were separated from spouses, children, siblings, and friends. Many spent their final months isolated from the people who loved them most. Families were forced to communicate through windows, phones, and screens—or in many cases, not at all.

Rev. Lynn Casteel Harper reflected on the importance of remembering these losses not simply as a public policy failure but as a profound human tragedy. Before meaningful reform can occur, she argued, we must first make space for grief.

The people who died were not statistics. They were parents, grandparents, veterans, neighbors, and friends. Their lives mattered, and their stories deserve to be remembered.

COVID Didn't Create the Crisis—It Exposed It

One of the webinar's most striking presentations came from author and advocate Margaret Morganroth Gullette, who challenged the narrative that nursing home deaths were simply unavoidable because residents were older and medically vulnerable.

The numbers tell a different story.

Although nursing home residents represented less than one percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for a disproportionate share of COVID deaths. Residents died at rates approximately 26 times higher than people living in the community.

At the same time, nearly 2,000 nursing homes reported zero COVID deaths during 2020, demonstrating that catastrophic outcomes were not inevitable. Better staffing, stronger leadership, adequate infection-control practices, and a commitment to resident well-being made a measurable difference.

Margaret argued that the pandemic exposed something deeper than a public health emergency—it revealed longstanding ageism and neglect within our long-term care system.

"We need to stop accepting these deaths as inevitable," she suggested. "We need to ask why so many were preventable."

The Staffing Crisis Continues

A recurring theme throughout the webinar was staffing.

Research consistently shows that adequate staffing is one of the strongest predictors of resident health, safety, and quality of life. Yet chronic understaffing remains widespread throughout the industry.

Margaret highlighted research showing that many facilities temporarily increase staffing levels when inspections are expected, only to reduce staffing afterward. The implication is troubling: facilities know staffing matters, but too often fail to maintain those levels consistently.

Staffing affects everything:

• Whether call bells are answered promptly

• Whether residents receive help eating

• Whether medications are administered correctly

• Whether infections are caught early

• Whether residents receive meaningful social interaction

Without sufficient staff, quality care becomes nearly impossible.

Families Are Not Visitors

One of the clearest lessons from the pandemic is that family members are not simply visitors.

Families often serve as caregivers, advocates, communicators, companions, and emotional lifelines. They help residents navigate daily life, monitor changes in health, and maintain connections to the outside world.

When visitation was suspended during COVID, residents lost far more than social visits.

They lost critical support systems.

Many experienced declines in cognition, mobility, emotional well-being, and overall health. Some lost the will to eat. Others became withdrawn, depressed, or disoriented.

The webinar highlighted ongoing efforts to pass the federal Essential Caregivers Act, which would help ensure that designated caregivers maintain access to residents during future emergencies.

As speakers emphasized, protecting residents means protecting their relationships.

The Human Cost of Isolation

Perhaps the most heartbreaking lesson from the pandemic was the impact of isolation itself.

COVID was not the only threat residents faced.

Loneliness, fear, confusion, and separation from loved ones became secondary crises within facilities across the country. Many residents spent months without physical touch. Others died without family at their bedside.

The consequences were profound.

Advocates noted that social isolation should be viewed as a public health issue in its own right—one that deserves the same level of attention as physical illness.

The pandemic taught us that safety cannot come at the expense of humanity.

Long-Term Care Workers Deserve Recognition

The webinar also acknowledged the extraordinary efforts of frontline caregivers.

Nursing assistants, nurses, dietary staff, housekeepers, therapists, and administrators worked under unprecedented circumstances. Many faced staffing shortages, inadequate protective equipment, and tremendous emotional strain.

Certified nursing assistants, in particular, often became surrogate family members for residents whose loved ones could not enter the building.

Their dedication helped countless residents survive some of the darkest days of the pandemic.

At the same time, speakers emphasized that direct care workers continue to be underpaid, undervalued, and stretched beyond reasonable limits. Any meaningful reform must include greater investment in the workforce that provides hands-on care.

Dignity Requires More Than Survival

The discussion also highlighted an issue that receives far less public attention: the Personal Needs Allowance (PNA).

Many Medicaid-funded nursing home residents are left with only a small monthly allowance to purchase personal items such as clothing, toiletries, transportation, internet access, and other essentials.

Federal law still guarantees only $30 per month, a figure that has remained unchanged since 1987.

Advocates argued that dignity requires more than simply keeping people alive.

It means allowing individuals to maintain personal autonomy, make choices, stay connected, and participate in life.

A Global Conversation

The webinar also explored international efforts to improve long-term care.

Representatives involved in the World Health Organization's work on global long-term care standards discussed efforts to develop frameworks that prioritize resident rights, workforce support, quality care, family involvement, and emergency preparedness.

The challenges exposed by COVID were not unique to the United States.

Around the world, societies are grappling with how to create systems that value older adults and support aging with dignity.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Five years later, remembrance alone is not enough.

The speakers identified several priorities for change:

• Pass the Essential Caregivers Act

• Strengthen staffing requirements and accountability

• Increase the Personal Needs Allowance

• Improve transparency around ownership and operations

• Conduct more effective inspections

• Invest in the direct care workforce

• Expand person-centered models of care

• Recognize families as partners in care

Most importantly, they urged participants not to forget.

The losses of the pandemic must remain visible—not to dwell in the past, but to build a better future.

Final Reflection

Five years later, the grief remains.

But so does the responsibility.

The residents who died during the pandemic deserved better. The families who were separated deserved better. The workers who carried impossible burdens deserved better.

Remembering them means more than honoring their memory.

It means continuing the work.

The greatest tribute we can offer those we lost is to ensure that future generations never experience the same tragedy again.