Covid-19 testing, sick-pay and public health outbreak management of respiratory infections in care homes: three rapid reviews of the literature

BACKGROUND: Credible and costed plans for managing future outbreaks of Covid-19 and other respiratory infections depend on the availability of good quality evidence. Methods: Three rapid reviews (RRs) examined evidence on: Bibliographic database searches for each RR and supplementary grey literature searches of Google for RR1 and RR3. RESULTS: RR1 included 1 study, RR2 none, and RR3, 1 report. RR1: a study of testing undertaken during an outbreak of Covid-19 in one care home. RR3: a report briefly described recommended inputs of one local authority's public health service into managing outbreaks of respiratory infections in settings including care homes. CONCLUSION: The reviews found little-to-no recent evidence on care home providers' policy and practice on asymptomatic Covid-19 testing, care home sick pay and/or shift backfill, and the incidence of Covid-19 and other respiratory infections, nor on costs of public health teams' outbreak management.