Low COVID-19 Mortality in Old Age Homes in Western India: An empirical study

  1. Jallavi Panchamia
  2. Bhavya Bhagat
  3. Vishakha Bharati
  4. Anushree Joshi
  5. Dileep Mavalankar

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Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has emerged as a public health crisis globally. Management of old age homes have been challenged during the ongoing pandemic crisis, as the elderlies are by far the most vulnerable population group in context to prone to infection of COVID-19 disease. Objective: The study intended to understand the effect of COVID-19 on western Indian elderly care homes, the actions taken by the administration, and the challenges faced during and post-lockdown period. Method: A total of 44 care homes across three states of western India were contacted for data collection during the period of September-December 2020. Semi-structured interviews of the administrators were taken to gather the required information to achieve the study objectives. Results:  Out of 44 care homes, ten care homes reported 169 cases of coronavirus infection and seven deaths. Hence, the rate of reported COVID-19 cases was found to be 1074 per 10,000 residents. Discussion: Results of the study indicated the significant steps taken by these old-age care homes to stave off the infection spread among the occupants. It was observed that an average of 26% of the occupants was sent back to their home/relative’s home before the lockdown to decongest the care homes. Care homes in western India seemed to have a very low infection rate and a very low number of deaths as compared to the Global Scenario. The present study also highlights the gaps in policy and calls for urgent action by the government for the regulation of old age homes in India.   

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  1. Version published to 10.24083/apjhm.v16i3.641
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.08.20245134: (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: 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 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

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.08.20245134v1 on medRxiv