Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #51

[Sillybilly]

Coronavirus spread slowing in Canada; death rate rises due to long-term care fatalities

Canadian public health officials initially underestimated how deadly the coronavirus would be in long-term care homes and have revised their calculations in new modelling numbers shared on Tuesday.

But chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says the data also shows Canada is slowing the overall spread of the first wave of the virus.

 

[Warwick1991]

Nursing homes getting more funding, emergency response team


Gov. Charlie Baker said Monday his administration would be making $130 million in additional funding available by the end of the week for nursing homes to pay for additional staff, cleaning and personal protective equipment.

Baker said long-term care facilities, including the state's 386 nursing homes, have "unfortunately evolved into a national hotspot," with 10,031 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than half of the state's deaths from the disease.

massachusetts/more at link

The problem with the Governor’s well-intentioned approach is that the nursing homes that receive aid are often part of chains. Those chains may take the money, but not use it as intended. I hope there is some kind of monitoring of the funds.

My cousin has now been returned to her nursing home in Essex County, MA, as the hospital was running out of beds. She’s still quite sick with Covid-19, but is receiving almost no care. Most of the staff has either quit or caught the virus. My cousin’s assigned nurse - on her floor - has no gloves, masks or other PPE supplied by the nursing home. She’s trying to supply her own, but it’s no easier for her to find PPE than it is for us. The nurse has told us that the nursing home management does not use the funds for PPE, and that the funding stays at the management level. The so-called non profit that runs my cousin’s nursing home has not been distributing any PPE to its Covid-19 wracked nursing homes. As a result, much of the staff has fled. I can’t really blame them.

As it stands now, my cousin is out of the hospital due to triage and prioritization, but still needs a great deal of care. The nursing home can’t provide it under current conditions, so we can only hope for her recovery.

 

[The Night Watchman]

It's complicated. But it is of note that Sweden is now enacting some mandatory business closures...

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. The new IHME model from yesterday shows 15,000 deaths in Sweden by August, up from 10,000 a week ago. This corresponds to 1,500 deaths per million, which is 3x higher than Italy is expected to have. Italy of course, has had one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks.

More importantly, there is a prediction of a heavy overrun of their healthcare facilities. Not sure what models Sweden is looking at, but this data is sobering.

From the IHME death rate plot for Sweden, is hard to understand why the deaths drop after June 1st. I doubt the country would be infected enough for herd immunity, so I'm confused. It seems for all the explaining we hear in the news, we never hear answers like this. I this a natural virus suppression prior to the second CV wave expected later in the year?

 

[Gardenista]

Coronavirus spread slowing in Canada; death rate rises due to long-term care fatalities

Canadian public health officials initially underestimated how deadly the coronavirus would be in long-term care homes and have revised their calculations in new modelling numbers shared on Tuesday.

But chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam says the data also shows Canada is slowing the overall spread of the first wave of the virus.

Interesting. So Canada's death rate is about the same as the USA

 

[Sillybilly]

Please continue at Thread #52.

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