In February 2021, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) started collecting surveillance data on cases and fatal cases of COVID-19 among people who live in long-term care facilities in European Union or European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries. For this, ECDC developed, with of COVID-19 EU/EEA countries, a surveillance protocol for retrospective or prospective reporting of weekly aggregate national data.
This, together with resources to support prevention and control of COVID-19 in long-term care facilities, is available in this webpage: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/all-topics-z/coronavirus/threats-and-outbreaks/covid-19/prevention-and-control/LTCF
In February, ECDC also published a webpage that contains surveillance data on infections and deaths among people living in long-term care facilities for 18 EU/EEA countries, up to the 8th of February 2021. It also contains a table summarising the national surveillance systems of those 18 countries. It is available on this webpage: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/all-topics-z/coronavirus/threats-and-outbreaks/covid-19/prevention-and-control/LTCF-data
What I really admire about some non-Western cultures is their general belief in and practice of not placing their aged family members in seniors care homes.
As a result, family caregivers don’t have to worry over those loved-ones being left vulnerable by cost-cutting measures taken by some care-home business owners to maximize profits.
As for care-home neglect, it was present here in Canada before Covid-19; however, we didn’t fully comprehend the degree until the pandemic really hit, as we horrifically discovered with the CHSLD Résidence Herron in Dorval, Quebec, about 10 months ago.
Western business mentality and, by extension, collective society, allowed the well-being of our oldest family members to be decided by corporate profit-margin measures. And our governments mostly dared not intervene, perhaps because they feared being labelled as anti-business in our avidly capitalist culture.
But, as clearly evidenced by the many needless care-home resident Covid-19 deaths, big business does not always know or practice what’s best for its consumers, including the most vulnerable with little or no voice.