Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on long-term care facilities
Prevention strategies include educating residents and staff on COVID-19, symptom screening, visitor restrictions, wearing face coverings, and installing sanitizer stations.
As of 30 May, BC has reported 113 deaths involving residents and workers associated with long-term care, against a provincial population of 5 million.
[citation needed] In Quebec, a team of health care professionals inspecting Résidence Herron after a resident's death from COVID-19 found the facility largely abandoned by staff.
[7][8] On 6 April, the City of Toronto discovered that a large shipment of Chinese-made masks delivered to its long-term care facilities were defective.
[10] Assistance from the Canadian Armed Forces at five Toronto-area nursing homes, beginning in April, led to a report by the Brigadier General in charge documenting extreme conditions and abuse.
[3] A rapid review of COVID-19 outcomes found a significant relationship in the unadjusted statistics between ownership status and effectiveness in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
[13] In July, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported on a provincial long-term care home inspector, in Ontario, who was under investigation for her use of social media to post health misinformation.
[8] Nursing home residents are being isolated in their rooms to slow the spread of the disease, while hospitals are reluctant to admit patients who have little chance of recovering.
[25] As of 9 April, 3,859 people have died in care homes operated by RSA since 1 February of whom 133 tested positive and 1,310 had symptoms consistent with coronavirus.
[8] The first officially confirmed case of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Russian nursing homes for elderly and disabled people was located the town of Vyazma, on April 11, 2020.
[26][27] Deputy Minister of Ministry of Labour and Social Protection Olga Batalina reported on April 23, 2020, that 450 Russians living in nursing homes were infected with the COVID-19, and diseases were registered in seven regions of Russia.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation called in April 2020 to close all care homes in full quarantine.
[28] At the beginning of May 2020, Elizaveta Oleskina, an employee of the Charity Fund "Starost v Radost" (Old Age in Joy), reported that there were cases of COVID-19 in nursing homes for elderly people in 20 Russian regions.
[35] Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford wrote an editorial about care homes in general, and in relation to COVID, suggesting the situation was a "scandal" that future generations would question.
She also noted care assistants' working conditions, including zero hour contracts, and homes urging sick employees to come in anyway.
[37][38] The Member of Parliament for Liverpool, Paula Barker, has criticised the lack of PPE at social care facilities, compared to NHS workers.
[41][42] By April, in addition to steps taken by individual facilities, the federal government had barred visitors, ended group activities, and instituted a mandatory testing regime for workers.
Long-term care facilities offered incentives such as gift cards, raffles, cash, and T-shirts to staff members in an attempt to increase the vaccination rate.
[46][47] Data analysis by the Los Angeles Times in May found that about half of all coronavirus deaths happened in skilled nursing or assisted living facilities.
[48] Governor Gavin Newsom had announced on April 10 that some healthy residents at nursing homes would be transferred to USNS Mercy, a US Navy hospital ship.
[49] As of mid-April 2020, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was considering a request to grant nursing homes "sovereign immunity" from negligence lawsuits during the pandemic.
[64] On February 12, 2021, it was reported that the office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had sent over 9,000 patients into nursing homes early in the pandemic.
