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When did long-term care shut down compared to public spaces?

There was a four-week delay in introducing restrictions on long-term care facilities in the UK, according to a policy tracker from the OECD. Other countries locked up care much quicker. You might expect an obvious correlation with death rates but this does not necessarily appear to be the case.

This week’s infographic compares the dates when restrictions were implemented in long-term care facilities, public spaces, and death rates in long term care. Interestingly, there is little correlation. Measures in the UK came more than 30 days after but it sits among a group of countries with high long term care (LTC deaths) that locked down much sooner.

Belgium introduced restrictions two days before the general public, Spain ten days after, and Ireland five days after but all have deaths among LTC residents of over 5,000 per million people. Sweden is also in this category – but never locked down its wider population.

“Among 22 European countries with data available by age group, reported COVID‑19 deaths per million people aged 60/65 and over were on average 3.7 times higher than amongst the population as a whole. In nearly all of these countries, 90% or more of reported COVID‑19 deaths were amongst people aged 60/65 and over; with people aged 80 and over accounting for around half of all COVID‑19 deaths,” says a new OECD report on the state of EU health.

This is of course far from the full picture. At least 17 of 31 European countries implemented restrictions including isolating measures and restricted visiting. Austria, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia has a complete ban on all visits, Ireland and Portugal suspended all but end-of-life visits. “Efforts were widely made to isolate residents infected by the virus, to the extent possible given the challenges of isolating residents living in collective dwellings with limited spare capacity. In the Czech Republic, for example, LTC facilities were required to reserve 10% of their capacity to accommodate suspected or infected cases,” adds the OECD.

 

We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Rachel Lewis or call 0207 183 3779.