Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison detailed response efforts to rising coronavirus death toll at aged care homes in hotspot state Victoria.
“There are now 188 aged care recipients who have passed away this week,” said Morrision. “We’re moving heaven and earth as a country at the moment to ensure that we can deal with this."
Even as fatalities from the global pandemic have slowed in many countries due in part to earlier detection and better treatment, some places are fighting resurgences that are far deadlier than their initial outbreaks.
In Hong Kong and Australia, fatalities have surged over the past month as new flareups entered nursing homes and elderly care facilities. Almost 90% of Covid-19 deaths in the Asian financial center have happened since its resurgence started in early July.
While the case-fatality ratios and overall death toll in both places continue to be low compared to countries like the U.S., their deadlier latter waves are a reminder of the devastation the pandemic continues to wreak, especially on elderly populations. Though resurgences in countries like Japan and Spain have so far been centered on younger people, any spread of infection to their large older populations could quickly turn deadly, making early containment efforts more urgent.
The worrying picture has forced governments to re-impose social distancing measures, stamping out green shoots of economic recovery. Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous state, is a month into a strict lockdown that has been tightened repeatedly, while Hong Kong has banned gatherings of more than two people not from the same family.
Many of the deaths in Hong Kong and Victoria state have been related to outbreaks in elderly care homes, following a grim global pattern. An analysis by the Canadian Institute for Health Information in June showed that residents in long-term care homes accounted for an average of 42% of coronavirus deaths in 16 OECD countries; in Canada, the proportion was over 80%.
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