The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) will resume reporting the names of nursing homes with confirmed coronavirus cases on May 18, a decision that serves the public’s right-to-know. The names of the homes were reported until early April, but LDH spokespersons said it stopped then because it was too difficult.

Nursing homes have accounted for more than one-third of the state’s total death toll from COVID-19. The Advocate reported that nearly two-thirds of the state’s 279 nursing homes have reported at least one case, with a total of more than 3,100 cases in 176 homes.

Matthew Block, executive counsel for Gov. John Bel Edwards, told the House and Governmental Affairs Committee the administration will begin “a whole new reporting regimen on nursing homes.” It will include individual names of nursing homes and all of the information involved in each particular nursing home.

Edwards said last week the state plans to use some of the 200,000 testing kits expected from the federal government to begin a broad program of testing nursing home residents. The newspaper said the state would send in strike teams to assist nursing homes in testing residents, but there has been no clarity on whether the testing will include plans to test staff and nursing home contractors.

The state’s 157 other adult residential facilities have reported 417 cases and 50 deaths. Those facilities include psychiatric and behavioral health centers and inpatient drug treatment centers. The state relies on the nursing homes to report the cases.

Nationwide, the death counts in nursing homes have been estimated to be potentially more than 10,000 people. Death counts have been heavy in New York, Maryland, Tennessee and Washington. One nursing home in New York City reported 98 deaths among its roughly 700 residents.

The hardest hit home in Louisiana is the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home in Reserve, where more than two dozen have died and dozens more have been infected.

A New Orleans attorney whose mother is in a nursing home and her father in an assisted living facility told The Advocate last month she wanted to hear more from the state about how it plans to test residents in senior facilities. She said widespread testing at the facilities is a key part of the federal guidelines for opening up the country.

Residents in nursing homes and in other adult facilities definitely need to get first consideration when it comes to increased testing. The families of those residents also deserve the additional coronavirus information the state will begin reporting on May 18.