New report: Measures adopted against COVID-19 in Long-Term Care services in Catalonia (Spain)

Tivy Barón-Garcia, Jordi Amblàs-Novellas, Juan Carlos Contel Segura, Aina Plaza, Sebastià J Santaeugènia González, Teresa Arechavala, Emili Vela, Anna Vila Rull, Albert Espelt¹

Key findings:

• In Catalonia, there were 235,856 confirmed cases of COVID-19 from 1^st March 2020 to 25^th October 2020. In the first wave, COVID-19 cases were underestimated due to the lack of diagnostic tests.
• The areas with the highest incidence were the Northern Metropolitan Area, Barcelona, and the Southern Metropolitan Area. COVID-19 mainly affected the age groups between 40 and 49 years. The highest mortality occurred at the end of March 2020, with more than 400 deaths daily.
• Between 1^st March 2020 and 25^th October 2020, 20,486 people who use long-term care became infected with COVID-19. 6,698 of them died.
• To deal with the current epidemiological situation in long-term care system, both Departments of Health, and of Labour, Social Affairs and Families of the Generalitat de Catalunya developed new Contingency Plans for users and staff of the long-term care system. Several measures were proposed:
  • Redistribution of services and staff.
  • Involvement of Primary Care professionals working together with professionals from the Department of Health and the Department of Labour, Social Affairs and Families.
  • Coordination between Intermediate care system and Social Services system.
  • Enabling alternative spaces to relocate people with COVID-19 infections.
  • Restriction of relatives’ visits at nursing homes.
  • Classification of nursing homes according to their isolation capacity. Classification of nursing homes according to whether there were active cases of COVID-19 or not.
  • Electronic and digital resources were also incorporated in long-term care systems’ centres.

The full report is available here in English:

And in Catalan:

¹Affiliations:

Tivy Barón-Garcia (Grup de Recerca en Epidemiologia i Salut Pública (GRESP) UManresa, UVicc-UCC, Fundació Univesitària del Bages), Jordi Amblàs-Novellas (Grup de Recerca en Cronicitat de la Catalunya Central (C3RG) Universitat de Vic-UCC), Juan Carlos Contel Segura (Departament Salut, Generalitat de Catalunya), Aina Plaza (Departament de Treball, Afers Socials i Famílies, Generalitat de Catalunya), Sebastià J Santaeugènia González (Departament Salut, Generalitat de Catalunya), Teresa Arechavala (Grup de Recerca en Epidemiologia i Salut Pública (GRESP) UManresa, UVicc-UCC, Fundació Univesitària del Bages), Emili Vela (Àrea de sistemas d’informació. Servei Català de la Salut. Departament Salut, Generalitat de Catalunya), Anna Vila Rull (Departament de Treball, Afers Socials i Famílies, Generalitat de Catalunya), Albert Espelt (Grup de Recerca en Epidemiologia i Salut Pública (GRESP) UManresa, UVicc-UCC, Fundació Univesitària del Bages)