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Outbreaks in care homes may lead to substantial disease burden if not mitigated

Outbreaks in care homes may lead to substantial disease burden if not mitigated

Authors :
James Sedgwick
Nick Gent
Thomas House
Ian P. Hall
Hugo Lewkowicz
Luke Webb
Lorenzo Pellis
Source :
Hall, I, Lewkowicz, H, Webb, L, House, T, Pellis, L, Sedgwick, J & Gent, N 2021, ' Outbreaks in care homes may lead to substantial disease burden if not mitigated ', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 376, no. 1829, 20200269 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0269, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Publication Year :
2021

Abstract

The number of COVID-19 outbreaks reported in UK care homes rose rapidly in early March of 2020. Owing to the increased co-morbidities and therefore worse COVID-19 outcomes for care home residents, it is important that we understand this increase and its future implications. We demonstrate the use of an SIS model where each nursing home is an infective unit capable of either being susceptible to an outbreak (S) or in an active outbreak (I). We use a generalized additive model to approximate the trend in growth rate of outbreaks in care homes and find the fit to be improved in a model where the growth rate is proportional to the number of current care home outbreaks compared with a model with a constant growth rate. Using parameters found from the outbreak-dependent growth rate, we predict a 73% prevalence of outbreaks in UK care homes without intervention as a reasonable worst-case planning assumption. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Modelling that shaped the early COVID-19 pandemic response in the UK’.

Details

Language :
English
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Hall, I, Lewkowicz, H, Webb, L, House, T, Pellis, L, Sedgwick, J & Gent, N 2021, ' Outbreaks in care homes may lead to substantial disease burden if not mitigated ', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 376, no. 1829, 20200269 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0269, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....11ef324d52b0eb4645d8b43d451802da
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2020.0269