Genomic epidemiology of COVID-19 in care homes in the east of England.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Hamilton WL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7997667 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Genomic epidemiology of COVID-19 in care homes in the east of England.
Hamilton William L WL Tonkin-Hill Gerry G Smith Emily R ER Aggarwal Dinesh D Houldcroft Charlotte J CJ Warne Ben B Meredith Luke W LW Hosmillo Myra M Jahun Aminu S AS Curran Martin D MD Parmar Surendra S Caller Laura G LG Caddy Sarah L SL Khokhar Fahad A FA Yakovleva Anna A Hall Grant G Feltwell Theresa T Pinckert Malte L ML Georgana Iliana I Chaudhry Yasmin Y Brown Colin S CS Gonçalves Sonia S Amato Roberto R Harrison Ewan M EM Brown Nicholas M NM Beale Mathew A MA Spencer Chapman Michael M Jackson David K DK Johnston Ian I Alderton Alex A Sillitoe John J Langford Cordelia C Dougan Gordon G Peacock Sharon J SJ Kwiatowski Dominic P DP Goodfellow Ian G IG Torok M Estee ME
eLife 20210302
COVID-19 poses a major challenge to care homes, as SARS-CoV-2 is readily transmitted and causes disproportionately severe disease in older people. Here, 1167 residents from 337 care homes were identified from a dataset of 6600 COVID-19 cases from the East of England. Older age and being a care home resident were associated with increased mortality. SARS-CoV-2 genomes were available for 700 residents from 292 care homes. By integrating genomic and temporal data, 409 viral clusters within the 292 ...[more]
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Project description:BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected people living and working in UK care homes causing high mortality rates. Vaccinating staff members and residents is considered the most effective intervention to reduce infection and its transmission rates. However, uptake of the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in care homes was variable. We sought to investigate factors influencing uptake of COVID-19 vaccination in care home staff to inform strategies to increase vaccination uptake and inform future preparedness.MethodsTwenty care home staff including managerial and administrative staff, nurses, healthcare practitioners and support staff from nine care homes across England participated in semi-structured telephone interviews (March-June 2021) exploring attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine and factors influencing uptake. We used thematic analysis to generate themes which were subsequently deductively mapped to the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behaviour (COM-B) model. The Behavioural Change Wheel (BCW) was used to identify potential intervention strategies to address identified influences.ResultsEnablers to vaccine uptake included the willingness to protect care home residents, staff and family/friends from infection and the belief that vaccination provided a way back to normality (reflective motivation); convenience of vaccination and access to accurate information (physical opportunity); and a supporting social environment around them favouring vaccination (social opportunity). Barriers included fears about side-effects (automatic motivation); a lack of trust due to the quick release of the vaccine (reflective motivation); and feeling pressurised to accept vaccination if mandatory (automatic motivation).ConclusionsWe identified influences on COVID-19 vaccine uptake by care home staff that can inform the implementation of future vaccination programmes. Strategies likely to support uptake include information campaigns and facilitating communication between staff and managers to openly discuss concerns regarding possible vaccination side effects. Freedom of choice played an important role in the decision to be vaccinated suggesting that the decision to mandate vaccination may have unintended behavioural consequences.
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Project description:PurposeTo describe critical care patients with COVID-19 across England, Wales and Northern Ireland and compare them with a historic cohort of patients with other viral pneumonias (non-COVID-19) and with international cohorts of COVID-19.MethodsExtracted data on patient characteristics, acute illness severity, organ support and outcomes from the Case Mix Programme, the national clinical audit for adult critical care, for a prospective cohort of patients with COVID-19 (February to August 2020) are compared with a recent retrospective cohort of patients with other viral pneumonias (non-COVID-19) (2017-2019) and with other international cohorts of critical care patients with COVID-19, the latter identified from published reports.Results10,834 patients with COVID-19 (70.1% male, median age 60 years, 32.6% non-white ethnicity, 39.4% obese, 8.2% at least one serious comorbidity) were admitted across 289 critical care units. Of these, 36.9% had a PaO2/FiO2 ratio of ≤ 13.3 kPa (≤ 100 mmHg) consistent with severe ARDS and 72% received invasive ventilation. Acute hospital mortality was 42%, higher than for 5782 critical care patients with other viral pneumonias (non-COVID-19) (24.7%), and most COVID-19 deaths (88.7%) occurred before 30 days. Meaningful international comparisons were limited due to lack of standardised reporting.ConclusionCritical care patients with COVID-19 were disproportionately non-white, from more deprived areas and more likely to be male and obese. Conventional severity scoring appeared not to adequately reflect their acute severity, with the distribution across PaO2/FiO2 ratio categories indicating acutely severe respiratory disease. Critical care patients with COVID-19 experience high mortality and place a great burden on critical care services.
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