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Michigan: Over 1,200 nursing home residents dead from virus

The figure accounts for nearly a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths.
Credit: AP
FILE - In this May 20, 2020, file photo, Salt Lake County Health Department public health nurse Lee Cherie Booth performs a coronavirus test outside the Salt Lake County Health Department in Salt Lake City. Public health officials have said robust testing for the coronavirus is essential to safely lifting stay-at-home orders and business closures, but states are creating confusion in the way they are reporting the data. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says at least 1,216 residents of nursing homes have died from the coronavirus, accounting for nearly a quarter of all COVID-19 deaths.

Director Robert Gordon told a legislative hearing Wednesday that the number is incomplete because 13% of facilities aren't reporting to the state, including in hard-hit metro Detroit. Gordon says health departments in Wayne and Oakland counties show 400 more deaths not reflected in the state’s data.

That would mean nursing home residents account for a third of Michigan's COVID-19 death toll.

RELATED: 6 residents die at Cedar Springs nursing home amid COVID-19 outbreak

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