Sara Berloto, Elisabetta Notarnicola, Eleonora Perobelli, Andrea Rotolo
The Covid-19 outbreak in Italian nursing homes is gathering strong attention from experts and the national media, since early evidence seems to show that the actual deaths linked to the virus are much higher than those reported in the official daily bulletins. This document sets out the information currently publicly available about the impact of COVID-19 on people who live and work in nursing homes, with a particular focus on mortality.
There is still relatively little information to assess the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people who live and work in care homes. This document will be updated and expanded as new data becomes publicly available. For further data on the Covid-19 outbreak in Italian nursing homes, please refer to our country report on the Covid-19 Long-Term Care situation in Italy.
The only data currently available on the Covid-19 outbreak in nursing homes are based on the results of the National Health Institute (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS)’s survey[1], which was sent to 3,276 nursing homes out of the 4,629 operating on the national territory.
On June 17th ISS published the final results of the survey. Data are referred to the period between February 1st and May 5h. As of May 5th, 1,356 nursing homes responded. The total mortality rate during that timeframe is 9.1% (considering all deaths). The Covid-19 related mortality rate (tests + suspected) is 3.1%.
We do not have any figure on deaths from the same period in previous year to investigate excess mortality.
No other official data on the outbreak in nursing homes at national level is publicly available.
[1] https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/pdf/sars-cov-2-survey-rsa-rapporto-finale.pdf