The National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care (NIC) say that research supports the finding that keeping older Americans in apartments of their own may be saving many of them from COVID-19. That’s a summary of results from a survey of more than 100 senior housing and care operators.

Think Advisor’s recent article entitled “LTC Type Has Big Effect on COVID-19 Infection Rates: Provider Survey” explains that some participants provide more than one type of long-term care (LTC) services.

The sample includes 56 assisted living facility managers and 29 nursing home managers, as well as providers of some other types of services.

The assisted living facility managers said that they’d tested 22% of the residents as of May 31, and only 1.5% had confirmed positive, or suspected positive, COVID-19 tests.

The nursing home managers tested 34% of their residents.

Roughly 6.7% of the residents tested had confirmed or suspected positive coronavirus tests.

Analysts at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity believe that, as of June 19, approximately 43% of the people who’ve died from COVID-19 in the U.S. have been in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

Many seniors with private long-term care insurance (LTCi) policies, short-term care insurance policies, or life insurance policies, or annuities that provide LTC benefits attempt to use the policy benefits to stay at home as long as possible, or to live in the least restrictive possible LTC setting.

The NIC survey results support the finding that access to private LTCi and LTC benefits may have protected some insureds from the COVID-19 outbreak.