Experts criticise Australia's aged care failings over COVID-19.
Experts criticise Australia's aged care failings over COVID-19.
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DOI：
10.1016/s0140-6736(20)32206-6
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发表时间：
2020-10-24
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Cousins S
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Cousins S
在COVID-19大流行的最初几个月，澳大利亚成为如何最好地应对的典范。在撰写本文时，澳大利亚在一个拥有2500万人口的国家中记录了27000多例病例，人均病例数低于大多数其他高收入国家。虽然澳大利亚作为一个岛国具有天然优势，但它也迅速建立了卫生系统的激增能力;部署了强大的检测、追踪和隔离系统;开展了有效的公共卫生运动;并为符合条件的人口提供了经济安全网。该国也在世界卫生组织之前宣布了大流行。但随着时间的推移，一个主要的弱点出现了：养老院。在澳大利亚的养老院中，新冠肺炎病例刚刚超过2000例。在撰写本文时，该国904名死于COVID-19的人中，有682人在养老院，大部分在维多利亚州。该国75%的死亡发生在此类设施中，这使澳大利亚成为全世界老年护理死亡率最高的国家之一。这让家庭感到悲伤，专家们感到愤怒，因为他们要求改革该部门的呼吁长期被忽视。
For the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia stood out as an exemplar of how best to respond. At the time of writing, Australia has recorded just over 27 000 cases in a country of 25 million people, with fewer cases per person than most other high-income countries. While Australia has a natural advantage as an island, it also swiftly built surge capacity in the health system; deployed robust test, trace, and isolate systems; rolled out effective public health campaigns; and provided the eligible population with an economic safety net. The country also declared a pandemic before WHO.But as time went on, a major weakness emerged: residential aged care homes. There have been just over 2000 cases of COVID-19 in residential aged care in Australia. Of the 904 deaths from COVID-19 in the country at the time of writing, 682 have been in aged care homes, mostly in the state of Victoria. That 75% of the country's deaths have occurred in such facilities gives Australia one of the highest rates worldwide of deaths in residential aged care as a percentage of total deaths. It has left families grieving and experts angry that their pleas to reform the sector had long been ignored.