The older adults who are already suffering from health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or respiratory illness - comorbidities that we now know raise the risk of severe Covid-19 and Covid-19-related death. In addition, a likely weaker immune system makes it harder for older adults to fight off infection.
As a result, the impact on older adults is notable. According to World Health Organization (WHO) data from April 2020, more than 95% of Covid-19 deaths were among people over 60 years of age, and more than half of all deaths occurred in people of 80 years-plus. In Sweden, for example, 90% of the deaths from Covid-19 were among people more than 70 years of age.
The Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offered data in March showing an average Covid-19 case fatality rate of 3.6% for adults in their 60s, 8% for those in their 70s, and 14.8% for people 80 years and above. “Older adults are at a significantly increased risk of severe disease following infection from Covid-19,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. He said, “Supporting and protecting older people living alone in the community is everyone’s business.”
Covid-19 deaths in care homes
While the wider community should indeed be preoccupied with the health and well-being of older adults, there are epicenters to the current crisis, and nursing homes, alongside hospitals, are one such place.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warn that “nursing home populations are at the highest risk of being affected by Covid-19,” compounding not only the risk for older people but also placing care workers at risk. The New York Times (NYT) gathered recent data showing that in the US, at least 28,100 residents and workers have died from a SARS-CoV-2 infection in a nursing home or in another long-term care facility for older people.
Overall, more than a third - that is, 35% - of all Covid-19 deaths in the US occur in long-term care facilities, comprising residents and workers. “While just 11 per cent of the country’s cases have occurred in long-term care facilities,” say the authors of the NYT report, “deaths related to Covid-19 in these facilities account for more than a third of the country’s pandemic fatalities.”
In other parts of the world, the situation looks dire, too. Data collected by researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE), in the United Kingdom, suggest that the majority of virus-related deaths occurred in nursing homes.
In Belgium, for example, 53% of the country’s entire number of Covid-19 deaths occurred in care homes. In Canada, this proportion was 62%. In France, the figure ranges from 39.2–51%. In Spain, 67% of all Covid-19 deaths occurred in care homes. In the US, nearly 60% of all care home-related Covid-19 deaths occurred in the state of New York.
The danger of the new coronavirus spreading in care homes, and affecting workers as well as residents, is amplified by the fact that most of the cases doctors confirmed in these environments were asymptomatic.
In Belgium, for example, 72% of staff diagnosed with Covid-19 showed no symptoms at the time; neither did 74% of the residents who had tested positive for the new coronavirus. Despite these alarming figures, the US federal government are not keeping track of this data. Withholding key nuanced information about whom the pandemic is affecting hardest is in the way of directing resources where people need them the most.
“It’s impossible to fight and contain this virus if we don’t know where it’s located,” David Grabowski, a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, said. Prof. Grabowski added that knowing this information could help predict where the next outbreak will be; other NGO advocates agree that knowing which nursing homes have the highest number of cases can help states direct resources where the need is the greatest.
