Dying Alone
The government’s authoritative response to Covid proved particularly devastating for Americans nearing the end of their lives and those whose loved ones were dying or died during the Covid years.
As the authors of The Legal and Ethical Dimensions of Hospital Visitation Bans in the COVID-19 Era noted, “[t]he scope and intensity of these visitation restrictions were unparalleled.” Another academic article researching the impact on Covid-19 hospital and emergency room policies surveyed the landscape, reporting that “during the pandemic’s first wave, 93 percent of U.S. hospitals and emergency departments adopted hospital-wide visitation bans, with only 58 percent allowing exceptions for end-of-life care.”
In other words, 54 out of every 100 Americans who died in hospitals during this time died alone, without a single visit from family members.
More Americans died alone in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, many of which banned visitors during the Covid-19 era. While federal Department of Health and Human Services regulations purported to require covered facilities to guarantee a resident’s “right to receive visitors of his or her choosing at the time of his or her choosing,” the rule allowed facilities to deny residents’ visitors if it “impos[ed] on the rights of another resident.”
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Guidance for Infection Control and Prevention of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) in Nursing Homes likely spurred such blanket policies. Issued in March 2020, that Guidance made clear that a covered facility could restrict visitors—but then added that “[f]acilities should actively screen and restrict visitation,” where visitors resided “in a community where community-based spread of COVID-19 is occurring.”
Given the community-based spread of Covid-19 was universal in the early months, that Guidance suggested nursing homes should implement a total ban on visitors. Further, although the Guidance noted possible exceptions for end-of-life situations because Covid-19 presented little risk to the person dying, the Guidance failed to discuss how facilities should balance their obligation to protect other residents. Consequently, some facilities barred visitors even in the case of residents nearing the end of their lives.
While the suffering may have come to an end for those who passed, the hysteria of the Covid-19 era struck survivors with a vengeance, with loved ones legally prohibited from mourning together. State laws limiting public gatherings to 5 or 10 people in total, practically prevented wakes and funeral services. Other states completely outlawed religious services, or in the case of New Jersey, funerals.
This brief synopsis provides but a sterile snapshot of what Americans suffered under the guise of slowing the spread and saving lives. Words do little to convey the true agony those who died alone faced.[1]
It is too late to undo the harm suffered by an untold number of Americans who died alone or who were left to mourn. This record, though, should serve as a reminder for future generations which face authoritarian demands sold as necessary to protect public health: There are fates worse than dying—such as dying alone.
[1] However, as I recounted in Forcing The Sick And Elderly To Die Alone Is Crueler Than COVID-19, I have some sense of the horror, having—with my brother and mother—held my father’s hands as he breathed his final breath mere months before the draconian Covid-19 restrictions shuttered our country (and our compassion).
March 26, 2025