2/3 of care homes have had no outbreak at all

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Well... that was not the stat I expected!

[Chersfrozenface]

Yet.

[Cornettoninja]

Good news though.

[HappyHammy]

What were you expecting. Do you think thats high or low.

[DippyAvocado]

Which means that 1/3 have. A shocking proportion since they were thought to be at risk early on and should have been protected.

[helpfulperson]

And only a quarter of care home deaths are COVID related.

It is awful and tragic but actually, unlike the press would have you believe it is still a relatively minor cause of death.

[AudacityOfHope]

Just read in the Guardian that 11,500 elderly people died in care homes in April. Thank god it's only a third then.

[Chersfrozenface]

However, on average in April there are normally about 8,400 deaths in care homes - this year there have been 26,563 deaths in England and Wales, so about 18,000 more than expected.

8,000 of these were attributed to coronavirus on death certificates. So what caused the other 10,000 excess deaths?

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

If I only got my news from MN, that would be an unbelievably low number.

As it is it is lower than I expected and I'll have to adjust how I think about it.

[NameChange84]

A good proportion of those homes will be small (some are only 3 beds whilst others are 200!). Many will not just be for the elderly...they’ll be for over 18s with learning disabilities or mental health problems. Some homes were lucky enough to have kind staff who stayed in lockdown at the care homes as a core team, not going home to their own families. Others, relied on agency staff or had hospitals knowingly discharge Covid positive patients back to homes who weren’t told. A local elderly persons home refused readmission to a Covid positive patient only to have the paramedics bring the person back and dump them there in the middle of the night. It’s happened all over that Covid was deliberately transmitted from hospital to care homes. Many homes are under a contract with the LAs and were faced with being closed down when they refused to take Covid patients in.

And almost always in the homes that nursed the most vulnerable. Disgusting actions by the people that made this an official government policy.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Those numbers and the excess mortality rates are also ongoing stats to consider. But yes, as far as I can see now, newspaper headlines do not reflect what is actually happening.

Where I live we have a significant number of care homes, of all sorts. And we have had no outbreaks, in staff or residents. Friends had thought they had been lucky, or swift to lockdown and hold to a very hard lockdown. They may be a little less scared of going to work now. May be able to relax a little and give residents a happier smile.

[Purplewithred]

@Chersfrozenface good question.

My guesses are combinations of:

• GPs haven't been doing their usual visits to care homes, so maybe some will be related to worsening conditions
  
• people/carers wary of going to hospital because of Covid-19
  
• rush to have up to date end of life discussions (ReSPECT, DNAR) with people so people refusing treatment/not being resuscitated
  
• undiagnosed Covid
  
• Covid as a contributing factor but underlying conditions (heart failure, copd etc etc) the actual cause of death
  

I am sure there are loads more, and I am sure we will never really know.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

My apologies. I didn't intend to start a thread for the rehashing of the "deliberate infection of old people" posts.

I know what care homes are, have worked in them for a few years.

[nellodee]

I hope you are socially distancing when you go to your crack dealer, Curious.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

As @Purple said, there are so many factors, from something as simple as a change in routine to reduced medical attention. So many deaths will have been in homes that have had no CV19 at all.

Eventually the ONS will give a detailed analysis, but that won't be for a while yet.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Beg your pardon?

Can I tell someone to fuck off, or will that get me deleted?

Or is there only one way to discuss this on MN?

[jhj67]

In the UK, wasn't this because hospitals moved barely-recovered ( = still infectious) covid cases into nursing homes, to free up capacity in the hospitals? So, the motives were good but the effects unfortunate.

In some states in America, nursing homes were ordered to take in covid patients who were stable but not recovered, and even, in this extreme case, Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine moved her own mother out of a nursing home into a hotel before ordering nursing homes to take infected cases

triblive.com/local/regional/pennsylvania-state-senator-calls-for-resignation-of-health-secretary-dr-rachel-levine/

nypost.com/2020/05/13/pennsylvania-health-official-moved-mother-from-nursing-home/

"Of the state’s 3,806 coronavirus deaths, 2,611 had occurred in nursing homes and long-term-care ­facilities, according to ABC27."

[nellodee]

How anyone can think that 1 in every 3 homes having Covid outbreaks is a positive statistic is just completely beyond me, I'm afraid. It's quite possibly the worst misuse of the word "only" I have ever seen.

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Except that isn't what I said, is it?

It may be what you have inferred but is not what I said!

[nellodee]

Friends had thought they had been lucky, or swift to lockdown and hold to a very hard lockdown. They may be a little less scared of going to work now. May be able to relax a little and give residents a happier smile.

Because this was SUCH good news!

[Pertella]

Can I tell someone to fuck off, or will that get me deleted?

Nah, telling someone to fuck off is fine

[Pertella]

Why is people not dying not good news in your opinion nellodee?

[CuriousaboutSamphire]

Oh give up! You don't have to be utterly outraged all the time.

It is possible to discuss any of this without such pointless combativeness.

I didn't say "only" I didn't say it was a positive stat. I did say it was unexpected and I was reframing how I think of it.

[nellodee]

People have died and are still bloody dying though. In their tens of thousands. In disgusting numbers. It's not good news that there are not more, it's bloody disgusting news that there are not less. The handling of Covid in care homes has been an absolute national disgrace and there is no good news about it and yes, anyone who thinks the glass is half full because only half of it was full of strychnine is absolutely on crack.

[Pertella]

One of the mums at school works in a care home for elderly patients and they've not had any corona related deaths as yet.

It is a private facility so I dont know if that has any bearing on it.

[MurrayTheMonk]

I had five suspected cases in mine, the first just before the general lock down was imposed, the rest becoming poorly the week after. Couldn't get service users tested at that point (and it was only a week ago testing began but only on currently symptomatic service users). Staff have since tested positive. Service users are miserly recovered. I'm fairly sure we had people with corona, and we nursed them as such. But we wouldn't be counted in the stats as having had cases as they Weren't confirmed. (Because no testing).I'm fairly sure there are a lot of homes like that.