Download PDF: RAC Communiqué November 2020
In this edition
Editorial
Case #1 That’s not COVID-19
Case #2 Challenges of isolation and environment
Case #3 COVID-19 and mental health
Newmarch House COVID-19 Outbreak
As If Expendable
Aged care and COVID-19: a special report
Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission
Clinical Screening Tool for COVID-19 in RACS
List of Resources
Editorial
Welcome to the final issue of 2020 a busy, exhausting and tragic year. This edition focuses on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and aged care. This is the third of our five issues published this year to address COVID-19 pandemic. While there is much fatigue and a desire to move on from this pandemic, the havoc it wreaks in residential aged care is profound around the world. With almost half of all deaths occurring in aged care residents who typically comprise less than one percent of the population.
In Australia (and in particular Victoria) we are now all very aware of the vulnerability of the healthcare system and the toll that COVID-19 can rapidly inflict on our older populations. Throughout Victoria’s second wave our residential aged care facilities were quickly exposed as sites of rapid and dangerous viral spread.