2/n For-profits have, in fact, reported higher death rates even accounting for factors the industry says explain the difference: Their homes’ older design & community infection rates.
Older or newer, hard-hit cities or no, for-profits saw more deaths per capita across the board.
3/n To be clear, older homes and those in areas with higher infection rates have *clearly* seen elevated death tolls.
We don't dispute that.
But: For-profits had worse avgs. than non-profits & municipal homes across virtually every combination of factors we looked at.
4/n Our analysis compared every Ontario nursing home's reported deaths against 6 factors: Ownership, design age, local spread, whether they're chain-owned, facility size, and if the home has an outside manager.
For-profits saw more deaths per capita in 78 of 81 combinations.
5/n The industry and experts also cautioned that we should consider outliers in the data, particularly places like Roberta Place, where B.117 ran rampant.
We tested that.
Even excluding Ontario's 10 worst-hit homes by per capita deaths, for-profits were consistently worse.
6/n The Ontario Long Term Care Association — which represents 70% of Ont. LTC homes, including most for-profits — disputes our findings.
They say they lack context & don't include "a range of factors experts agree increase the likelihood and magnitude of a COVID-19 outbreak.”
7/n The OLTCA reiterated that the most important risk factor was the daily incidence of COVID-19 infections in the surrounding community + the age of buildings and number of beds per room.
(We tested against age and community spread, we don't have data on beds per room)
8/n On Feb. 19, the Ministry of Health presented research to the LTC Commission that found for-profit ownership was a significant factor in increased mortality in Wave 2, although not using data for the full pandemic.
10/n All that to say: We believe our analysis is valid and has found an undeniable trend, and we're being transparent about other's people's findings, and our own.
1/n There are a few things we couldn't get into in our story this morning on the higher death rates in for-profit LTC homes, including the extent to which Wave 2 was relatively much *worse* in for-profits.
First, it was an emergency. They shut schools and the border was closed. But not at Pearson (and we went on March break.) They closed parks for the cherry blossoms. We lined up outside grocery stores. Then it was Stage 1, 2 and 3. Then it was “modified stage 2”.
We were told not to dine indoors — but you still could. They said "everyone can get tested," then it was only a few of us. Then appointments only. We all had our bubbles. Then there was colour coding. Then they changed the colours. And grey was worse than red.
Then there was “grey +” which was also a “lockdown” (but for most of us only after Boxing Day). The border was still closed, but you could fly to Cancun. Still can. Our kids went to school during the lockdown, then they didn’t. They will again soon. Probably.
2/n The problem is that all the ups and downs in these lines strongly suggest *narrative* — but for the most part, the data doesn't have anywhere near that fidelity.
Big turnarounds happen in pandemics, yes, but you won't know for sure you've had one until weeks later.
3/n Think of all the times we've heard about flattening, or a plateau, or a spike after some holiday.
You can see those moments clearly in the ups and downs of the fall wave.
At the same time: You can also draw a remarkably straight line through the same curve.
1/n Not long after I did the attached chart of cases by age, I realized I could use the Ontario database to predict how deadly each day's set of new cases might be, based on the age breakdown and their average death rates.