Locking vulnerable people in care homes during a pandemic leads to the worst possible outcomes

Locking vulnerable people in care homes during the pandemic leads to the worst possible outcomes for them – scientific paper.

The nursing home doctor says:

A senior walked around the nursing home every day. This is no longer allowed during the lockdown. Everyone was locked up. For weeks and months. When the lockdown was lifted he couldn’t do it anymore.

It is one story out of thousands. Frail elderly people have been confined together in nursing homes to reduce the risk of infection. But was that true? A new study from Canada shows that locking up vulnerable people actually increases the risk of infection. This does not depend on new insights. But simply according to long-known epidemiological principles.

in This new article is published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS One Correlational scientists show that isolating vulnerable people from the healthier majority of the population leads to the worst possible outcomes for them (1).

The article, titled “Predictions from Standard Epidemiological Models of the Impact of Separating and Isolating Vulnerable People in Health Care Facilities,” was written by Joseph Hickey, Ph.D., and Dennis J. Rancourt, Ph.D., of CORRELATION Research in the Public Interest (CORRELATION-canada.org) based in Ottawa, Canada.

The article shows that standard epidemiological models that have been in the scientific literature for decades, including well before the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, for COVID-19, unambiguously predict a significant increase in the number of infectious diseases among Population at risk. When it is isolated and separated from the general population.

From the article:

“At-risk populations are disadvantaged by isolation from non-exposed populations and benefit from reduced risk of infection due to mingling with or dilution of non-exposed populations during an epidemic or epidemic.” …

And the:

Segregation policies in care homes may have been responsible for many deaths from Covid-19 in Western countries.

The authors explain that, with the current state of knowledge, isolating and isolating older people is of no benefit in preventing deaths under epidemic or epidemic conditions. The study is relevant to ongoing research into the recognized health care disaster that occurred in long-term care facilities in Canada and other countries in the spring of 2020.

CORRELATION is a registered non-profit organization that conducts independent scientific research on topics of public interest, and is funded entirely by individual public donations.

All research articles related to the link: https://correlation-canada.org/research/

reference

1. Hickey J, Rancourt DJ. Predictions from standard epidemiological models of the consequences of separating and isolating vulnerable people in care facilities. One plus. 2023 Oct 30;18(10):e0293556. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293556. PMID: 37903148; Area ID ID: PMC10615287. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293556