Evolution and effects of COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes: a population analysis in 189 care homes in one geographical region of the UK

  1. Jennifer K Burton
  2. Gwen Bayne
  3. Christine Evans
  4. Frederike Garbe
  5. Dermot Gorman
  6. Naomi Honhold
  7. Duncan McCormick
  8. Richard Othieno
  9. Janet E Stevenson
  10. Stefanie Swietlik
  11. Kate E Templeton
  12. Mette Tranter
  13. Lorna Willocks
  14. Bruce Guthrie

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.09.20149583: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations include that testing policy and therefore case ascertainment changed over time. Before 17/03/20, testing typically ceased after two to five cases were positive (except where outbreaks were large when additional testing was sometimes done). Subsequently all suspected cases were tested, with asymptomatic resident testing implemented from the end of May in care-homes with ongoing outbreaks. Case numbers are likely to be underestimated, particularly early in the epidemic.10 However, the absence of excess mortality in care-homes without an outbreak makes it unlikely that any large outbreaks were missed. Finally, the study examines 189 care-homes and so is relatively underpowered to examine associations with care-home characteristics. Data from the Care Quality Commission shows that 36% of English care-homes report an outbreak compared to 37% in this study.16 A larger proportion of all COVID-19 deaths are reported to have occurred in Scottish compared to English care-homes (47% vs 28%),11,17 although both figures are in the range reported internationally (from 24% in Hungary to 82% in Canada).1 This may reflect differences in admission practices in England and Scotland, since approximately one-eighth of COVID-19 related deaths of care home residents in England are in hospital18 versus only 3.8% in this study. Data from a London point-prevalence study of four nursing homes for ∼400 residents identified a 26% mortality rate across the homes, higher than that observed here...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1016/s2666-7568(20)30012-x
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.09.20149583: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.Randomizationnot detected.Blindingnot detected.Power Analysisnot detected.Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    esearch in context ence before this study searched PubMed and the medRxiv preprint server using terms ‘long-term care’, ‘nursing home’, ‘ca me’, or ‘residential care’ combined with ‘COVID-19’ and/or ‘SARS-CoV-2’, updated to 25 th June.
    PubMed
    suggested: (PubMed, SCR_004846)

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore is not a substitute for expert review. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers) in the manuscript, and detects sentences that appear to be missing RRIDs. SciScore also checks to make sure that rigor criteria are addressed by authors. It does this by detecting sentences that discuss criteria such as blinding or power analysis. SciScore does not guarantee that the rigor criteria that it detects are appropriate for the particular study. Instead it assists authors, editors, and reviewers by drawing attention to sections of the manuscript that contain or should contain various rigor criteria and key resources. For details on the results shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.09.20149583v1 on medRxiv