Care home covid disaster - new info

[beentoldcomputersaysno]

goodlawproject.org/news/they-let-covid-rip-through-care-homes/

@pombal

It’s difficult to isolate but not impossible but it involves planning, adjusting rotas, moving residents. Some care homes have had no covid cases others have had wave after wave and it’s not just luck.

Costs money because people need more supervision and care to keep them safely isolated, no one wants to pay it.

Care homes are also designed to be more like homes than hospital, that leads to problems in itself with lay out and furnishings, group areas etc.

You'd probably need double the staff too to contain an outbreak, one set to deal with the covid+ cases and another to deal with the negatives, including cleaning staff. Most places have limited bathrooms, one kitchen etc. Again, it'd cost money and no one's willing to pay that, same for proper PPE.

Isolation rules changing are the biggest issue at the moment, not being required to SI even when you have a positive case at home until you test positive yourself. And it's not just a case of not being willing, it's losing income and facing disciplinary because you've taken unauthorised leave effectively if you do it. Nice choice to face that is, knowingly potentially infect the people you work with or lose your job.

I agree with you Maverickess.
But the money used for T+T, the COVID app that no one uses and the nightingales could have been better spent preventing the spread of COVID is care homes and hospitals - isolation, higher grade ppe, ventilation/ air filtration systems in buildings.

Yes. Or, make better use the nightingale hospitals.
We all saw it ripping through care homes in Italy before it got here. There’s no excuses.

I agree with you both @pombal and @Coconutmeg but I'm not sure what else we could have expected from an administration and and industry that puts profit before anything else and considers care workers in need of 'upskilling' because they don't earn much, instead of paying them better.
I mean, why didn't care homes already have a good supply and stock of PPE? It's supposed to be standard every day equipment.

Though you know, they have legislated to make sure all those selfish care workers are doubly vaccinated before they work with the elderly/vulnerable, so they can shout from the rooftops how much they're doing to protect the elderly and vulnerable and hopefully avoid the nasty questions about what happened at the start (and discredit care workers who dealt with it for good measure, so they're ignored when it comes to telling it like it was)