COVID's Deadly Impact on Care Home Residents

"They [Hong Kong] applied what they learned from the SARS outbreak. That learning from experience, learning from each other, is one of the goals of this report."
"The virus spread so quickly in places like Italy and New York that there was a lot of focus on what was happening in the community. We did a good job on that, but now we're seeing what the repercussions are of not placing as much emphasis on long-term care."
"As we start to think about re-opening business and returning to normalcy, we are now looking at what is the impact of community transmission on long term care? That's something that we missed initially. That's something we have to continue to explore."
Dr.Amy Hsu, researcher, Bruyere Research Institute, Ottawa

Paramedics transport resident in Laval, Quebec. Christinne Muschi,/Reuters

"The authors of this report are fully aware of the limitations of existing data and do not consider that the data presented here are directly comparable."
"However, it is important to share these data as, if the levels of infections and deaths of care residents and staff are not measured in a timely (even if imperfect) manner, there is a danger that opportunities to alert policy-makers to the scale of the impact of COVID-19 in care homes will be missed."
"This may result in allocations of scarce resources (including testing, personal protection equipment, medical personnel and medicines) that leave out the settings that are experiencing some of the biggest challenges in relation to COVID-19."
Study: Mortality associated with COVID-19, Bruyere Research Institute

According to a newly-released study, it would appear that Canada has racked up the highest percentage of COVID-19 deaths taking place in long-term and old-age care homes for the elderly and the health-compromised among thirteen countries included in a survey in an academic study. Titled Mortality associated with COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes early international evidence, the study shows that of Canada's COVID-19 deaths, fully 62 percent have taken place in long-term care or retirement homes.

This astonishing percentage of deaths striking the elderly and health-impaired in Canada ranks as slightly in excess of what Norway and Ireland have experienced -- each of which registered 60 percent of their death counts having taken place in care homes. Hungary appeared to have experienced the lowest rate, at 19 percent, of countries surveyed which had recorded at least 100 COVID-19-related deaths in their populations.

Confoundingly, Hong Kong -- despite its next-door proximity to mainland China where SARS-CoV-2 ravaged Hubei province and the city of Wuhan, then made its devastating way through to Beijing and beyond -- recorded a mere four deaths attributable to COVID, and none of those occurred in care homes. The measures undertaken by Hong Kong following its experience in the 2003 SARS outbreak appears to reflect their relatively light occurrence of deaths due to COVID contagion.

Data, so vital to understanding the course and impact of the disease within any community, is collected differently by various countries, making comparisons between countries difficult to understand. Difficulty in understanding or interpreting data led to the decision that some countries hit hard by the pandemic, including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain and Italy would not appear in the study.

The study, as explained by one of its researchers, Dr.Hsu, who is chair in primary health care dementia at University of Ottawa Brain and Mind-Bruyere Research Institute, led to the conclusion that overall, Canada appears to have done a credible job at collecting information relating to long-term care, even while the study points out that many countries were simply blindsided by the impact and deadly reach of the virus into long-term care homes.

Broken down by provinces, the death rate in the country has Quebec recording the highest rate of care-home deaths at 79 percent of its 1,849 deaths as of April 29. The rate in Ontario stood at 49 percent as of May 2, with 590 long-term care deaths among the 1,215 COVID-19 deaths n the province, yet delays in reporting on the part of Public Health Ontario indicates that the number of deaths could be quite higher in actual fact.

The National Institute on Ageing's Long-Term Care COVID-19 Tracker indicates that Ontario has more than 6,300 cases and 1,021 deaths in long-term care settings, representing a 62 percent mortality rate. The purpose of the study is to be regarded as an important tool aiding policy-makers to reach an understanding of the devastating effect of the disease on care homes, the researchers emphasized.

Health-care workers use a sheet to obscure a stretcher as it is placed in an unmarked van outside the Laurier Manor in Ottawa, a long term care facility experiencing an outbreak of COVID-19, on Sunday, April 26, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS / Justin Tang)