Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33581086›Full record

ArticleEnvironmental research2021

Second versus first wave of COVID-19 deaths: Shifts in age distribution and in nursing home fatalities.

John P A Ioannidis, Cathrine Axfors, Despina G Contopoulos-Ioannidis

Open access · greenAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Environmental research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
75citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
10.7field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

75 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 128 citations in OpenAlex.

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15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.

John P A IoannidisStanford Prevention Research Center, Department of Medicine, and Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA; Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford, CA, USA. Electronic address: jioannid@stanford.edu.
Cathrine AxforsMeta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford, CA, USA; Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Despina G Contopoulos-IoannidisDivision of Infectious Diseases, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
Stanford Health Care · USStanford University · USUppsala University · SE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectiveTo examine whether the age distribution of COVID-19 deaths and the share of deaths in nursing homes changed in the second versus the first pandemic wave. ELIGIBLE DATA: We considered all countries that had at least 4000 COVID-19 deaths occurring as of January 14, 2021, at least 200 COVID-19 deaths occurring in each of the two epidemic wave periods; and which had sufficiently detailed information available on the age distribution of these deaths. We also considered countries with data available on COVID-19 deaths of nursing home residents for the two waves.

main outcome measuresChange in the second wave versus the first wave in the proportion of COVID-19 deaths occurring in people <50 years ("young deaths") among all COVID-19 deaths and among COVID-19 deaths in people <70 years old; and change in the proportion of COVID-19 deaths in nursing home residents among all COVID-19 deaths.

resultsData on age distribution were available for 14 eligible countries. Individuals <50 years old had small absolute difference in their share of the total COVID-19 deaths in the two waves across 13 high-income countries (absolute differences 0.0-0.4%). Their proportion was higher in Ukraine, but it decreased markedly in the second wave. The proportion of young deaths was lower in the second versus the first wave (summary prevalence ratio 0.81, 95% CI 0.71-0.92) with large between-country heterogeneity. The proportion of young deaths among deaths <70 years did not differ significantly across the two waves (summary prevalence ratio 0.96, 95% CI 0.86-1.06). Eligible data on nursing home COVID-19 deaths were available for 11 countries. The share of COVID-19 deaths that were accounted by nursing home residents decreased in the second wave significantly and substantially in 8 countries (prevalence ratio estimates: 0.36 to 0.78), remained the same in Denmark and Norway and markedly increased in Australia.

conclusionsIn the examined countries, age distribution of COVID-19 deaths has been fairly similar in the second versus the first wave, but the contribution of COVID-19 deaths in nursing home residents to total fatalities has decreased in most countries in the second wave.

Indexed as

COVID-19AgedAge DistributionAustraliaHumansMiddle AgedNorwayNursing HomesSARS-CoV-2UkraineAgeCOVID-19Epidemic waveNursing home

Identifiers

PMID33581086
PMCPMC7875012
OpenAlexW3127512458

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.