High number of weekend Covid deaths linked to hospital staffing levels
File Was Number Pared Weekdays From Picture Weekends Average The Global Deaths Coronavirus On Of 6% Higher To
Global Covid-19 deaths were higher on weekends than on weekdays on average during the pandemic, with researchers suggesting that shortfalls in weekend hospital staff and capacity may have played a role.
Researchers accepted that reporting delays could be a contributing factor, but said shortfalls in clinical staffing, capacity, and experience at weekends are also likely to have played a role.
Overall, the average number of global deaths from coronavirus was 6% higher on weekends compared to weekdays throughout the pandemic, researchers said.
Researchers from the University of Toronto analysed all deaths reported to the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 database between March 7, 2020, and March 7, 2022.
The findings, which are due to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Portugal later this month, suggest that the US had, on average, 1,483 weekend deaths compared to 1,220 on weekdays — a 22% increase.
Brazil had an average of 1,061 weekend deaths compared to 823 on weekdays, which is a 29% increase, and the UK had on average 239 weekend deaths compared to 215 on weekdays — an 11% increase.
A further study looking at the average number of Covid deaths on individual days of the week found the increase was particularly large when comparing Sunday to Monday and Friday to Monday.
One of the researchers, Fizza Manzoor, said delays in reporting deaths on weekends do not account completely for differences.
“Bureaucratic delays on weekends alone do not explain why there are fewer documented Covid-19 deaths on Mondays compared to Fridays, and reporting lags alone cannot explain why the increase in weekend deaths was so substantial in the USA and not seen in Germany,” said Dr Manzoor.
“Instead, the ‘weekend effect’ is also likely to be due to shortfalls in clinical staffing, capacity, and experience.
“There is an opportunity for health systems to further improve clinical care on all days of the week.”
The researchers accepted the conclusions of the study, which has been peer-reviewed, could be limited by false negatives, missed cases, and data entry errors.