COVID WARD NIGHTMARE
Half of severe cases caught on wards, new study reveals
MORE than half of severe cases of coronavirus were caught in hospital during the second wave, according to a shocking new study.
The research reveals the spread of the virus in hospitals was a major factor in severe illnesses and deaths during the earlier part of winter.
It also concludes that Scotland’s shielding programme failed to protect the most vulnerable people from coronavirus because of the severe risk of catching the virus when they had to enter hospital.
The study has sparked renewed concerns that the SNP Government did not do enough to tackle the problem of coronavirus spreading in hospitals.
The research report, published on the MedRxiv health sciences preprint site, assesses data about severe covid cases in the general population and in shielding patients.
It said: ‘hospital-acquired infection has made a substantial contribution to the burden of covid-19 in the population, accounting for more than half of severe cases in early December 2020.
‘For vulnerable individuals to be shielded, the risk of hospitalacquired infection must be reduced and support must be provided for other adults in the household to co-isolate with the vulnerable individual.’
The research, by a range of experts from Public health Scotland and universities including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde and Glasgow caledonian, found people who were shielding had a higher risk of catching severe covid-19 illness than the general population. The risk was highest for those who had received solid organ transplants.
It put this down to the high frequency of hospital visits among those shielding, which included people with some cancers or severe respiratory conditions, as well as transplant patients. The study said: ‘The effectiveness of shielding vulnerable individuals was limited by the inability to control transmission in hospital and from other adults in the household.’
The key findings of the study included that rates of severe covid19 among those shielding have remained high through the whole epidemic, and it said the proportion of cases of severe illness attributable to hospital attendance ‘reached a peak of 64 per cent during the second wave’. It said that, if the advice and support offered to people when shielding letters were issued had been effective, the ‘rate ratio’ of severe cases would have declined within two weeks of the first letters being issued.
however, the report said severe cases ‘fell rapidly in the general population’ in April 2020 following the first lockdown but ‘the rate ratio for severe covid-19 associated with eligibility for shielding rose during April 2020’ and then again in October-early December. It said: ‘The high frequency of recent hospital exposure in cases of severe covid-19 who were eligible for shielding, together with the increase in the rate ratio associated with recent hospital exposure during periods when populationwide social distancing measures were being imposed, suggests that exposure to transmission in hospital settings is at least part of the explanation for the failure to reduce the rate ratio associated with eligibility for shielding.’
It added: ‘We found no evidence that the shielding programme per se reduced covid-19 rates, although it is possible that without shielding advice and support the outcome in this group would have been worse.’
Jackie Baillie, health spokesman
‘Shocking revelations’
for Scottish Labour, said: ‘This report points to a number of missteps at the start of the pandemic, and raises questions about the effectiveness of shielding strategies and the problems of hospital-acquired Covid cases.’
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Donald Cameron said: ‘These are shocking revelations about the role that hospitals played in spreading the virus. The SNP Government must take the responsibility for this. It was their job to keep our hospitals secure from Covid-19 and to protect our most vulnerable patients, as well as frontline NHS staff’.
Mr Cameron said the public needed an explanation.
Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex ColeHamilton said the figures suggest ‘transmission in a medical setting remains a serious problem’, adding: ‘The real risk is that if people are worried about catching the virus they might not seek treatment when they need it.’
Jason Leitch, the Scottish Government’s national clinical director, said: ‘Public Health Scotland’s evaluation of shielding, published in January 2021, found that the programme helped change behaviour, and the support provided met the needs of people who were asked to shield.’