A 15-day Working Shift Prevent the Cross-contamination of Coronavirus Disease-2019 in a Nursing Home in Turkey

Abstract

The new type of Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) outbreak had gained speed especially after spreading to the continents of Europe and America and reached a large number of deaths. Many countries declared suppression measures including social isolation, closed schools and workplaces and cessation of social activities. It has been observed that many of those who lost their lives due to COVID-19 were old aged people from nursing homes and chronic care centers (1). In Turkey, reported number of COVID-19 positive cases are more than 260 thousand and number of deaths are over 6.100 with 91% recovery rate and 73 death/1 M population (2). With strict preventive measures began before the pandemic resulted with low COVID-19 cases and mortality rate in nursing homes across the country (3). This report showed data from a nursing home in Turkey, İstanbul Municipality Kayışdağı Darülaceze Directorate, one of the biggest in the country with 679 residents, which did not have any COVID-19 case during the first year of the pandemic (both employees and residents) with a working plan that successfully prevent cross-contamination.