Isolating staff members and nursing home residents together is an effective method for reducing coronavirus cases and deaths in long-term care facilities, according to a new study featured in JAMA. 

An investigation led by French researchers found that just five out of 1,250 residents (0.4%) had confirmed COVID-19 and died from the disease in nursing homes with staff who self-confined with residents for more than seven days. Twelve out of 794 staff members (1.6%) in those facilities had confirmed or possible COVID-19. 

The research used data from 17 French nursing homes where staff members confined themselves to the facility. That information was compared to a national survey of nursing homes that included 9,513 facilities, with 385,290 staff members and 695,060 residents. The national survey found that about 30,569 residents (or 4.4%) had confirmed COVID-19 and 12,516 residents (or 1.8%) died from the disease. It also found that 14,645 staff members (7.6%) had confirmed or possible COVID-19. 

Researchers said the findings suggest that the initiative of staff members to confine themselves with residents was successful in protecting their facilities from an outbreak. 

“These experiences, which are based on a strong voluntary investment of staff, including managers, cannot be presented as a generalizable model because of several barriers, such as low sustainability, labor law regulations, and consequences on staff family life,” the researchers wrote.

“However, in the context of a pandemic threat, staff members in a nursing home free from COVID-19 cases who have decided to confine themselves to the nursing home should not be discouraged; furthermore, screening for asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections should be offered to staff members before they begin the confinement period with residents to promote better outcomes,” they concluded.

Full findings were published online Thursday in the journal.

These findings are in line with a July study that asserted COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes could have been cut by 44% if operators limited cross-traffic across nursing homes among staff members and had them work at only one facility. Those researchers also discovered certain facilities whose workers stayed “on campus” for extended periods of time and met with great success.