A delayed start in required reporting caused as many as 16,623 deaths from the CCP virus in nursing homes to be omitted from the official count, according to a Harvard University researcher-led study. The federal government did require nursing comes to report COVID-19 cases and deaths until May 24, 2020, more than three months after the first nursing home outbreak at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington. During the first reporting period, facilities were also given the option of whether to report retrospective data. The Life Care Center of Kirkland, for example, did not report any COVID-19 cases or deaths in its first submission to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), even though a CDC investigation a month earlier had 81 cases of and 23 deaths from the CCP virus. The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, is the pathogen that causes COVID-19. …