There is a significantly higher death rate in European countries with a high percentage of nursing homes relative to its population, an Israeli professor discovered according to a Times of Israel (TOA) report.

Prof. Neil Gandal, a Tel Aviv University economics professor, believes that this discrepancy explains why various countries have been impacted so differently by the coronavirus.

“Old-age homes, the way they exist currently, cause deaths,” Prof. Neil Gandal told TOA. “Many fewer would have died if they had been living at home.”

Gandal analyzed the coronavirus mortality rate for 32 European countries and discovered the correlation between the rate of care facilities for the elderly and the number of coronavirus fatalities. “We were stunned by this,” said Gandal.

His study showed that the countries with the highest deaths rates, the UK, Italy, Spain and Belgium, all have a high percentage of elderly people living in nursing homes in relation to their population whereas European countries with low death rates, such as Greece and Albania, have a low percentage of nursing home beds.

The study did not include Israel but the TOA report said that Israel has a relatively low number of nursing home beds and a correspondingly low number of coronavirus fatalities.

Gandal emphasized that he’s not claiming that the varying rate of nursing home beds in European countries provides a full explanation for the varying death rates but according to a mathematical model assessing the impact of other factors he estimates that it accounts for 28% of the variation. He adjusted the data according to the varying percentage of elderly people in each country.

Although it’s clear that many coronavirus fatalities occurred in senior care facilities, it hasn’t been clear whether the high death rate was due to something about the facilities themselves or because the facilities’ residents are elderly and often incapacitated and therefore more vulnerable. Gandal believes that his study shows that the institutions themselves are the problem.

“It was well known that people were dying in these facilities, but some thought they ‘would have died anyway,’” Gandal said, asserting that his study shows that many elderly people would not have died if they would not have been living at care facilities.

“In countries like Greece the older people are not necessarily in good health but they are at home, and the families were able to take care of them.”

The report added that some health officials believe that the low death rate among Arab Israelis is due to the fact that the population has a lower percentage of nursing homes than Jewish-Israelis.

“In the Arab sectors we don’t really have retirement homes,” Emil Agha, epidemiologist and infectious diseases supervisor at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, told TOA last month. “People live at the family home and this makes a difference.”

Gandal believes that governments should use his study to examine possible changes that can be implemented in senior care facilities such as increasing staff or having residents eat in their rooms rather than communal dining rooms.

“My first reaction upon seeing the figures I produced was a little sadness, because these people didn’t have to die,” Gandal said. “But my next reaction was that if there’s a second wave, maybe there’s something we can do.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)