Separated by a curtain, a person sleeps in a bed as mortuary workers prepare the body of an elderly person who died of COVID-19 before removing it from a nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020. Virus cases among the elderly are again on the rise across Europe, causing havoc and rising death tolls in nursing homes despite the lessons of a tragic spring. Authorities are in a race to save lives as they wait for crucial announcements on mass vaccinations.
The body of an elderly person who died of COVID-19 is covered with a sheet on her bed in a nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. Virus cases among the elderly are again on the rise across Europe, causing havoc and rising death tolls in nursing homes despite the lessons of a tragic spring. Authorities are in a race to save lives as they wait for crucial announcements on mass vaccinations.
Residents take part in a gym session at the Icaria nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Nov. 11, 2020. Virus cases among the elderly are again on the rise across Europe, causing havoc and rising death tolls in nursing homes despite the lessons of a tragic spring. Authorities are in a race to save lives as they wait for crucial announcements on mass vaccinations.
Through a window, Angels Trepat, 59, says goodbye to her mother Angelina, 91, after visiting her at the Icaria nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020. Virus cases among the elderly are again on the rise across Europe, causing havoc and rising death tolls in nursing homes despite the lessons of a tragic spring. Authorities are in a race to save lives as they wait for crucial announcements on mass vaccinations.
Maintenance workers walk past a resident sleeping on a bed, right, at Amavir Ibaneta nursing home, in the small Pyrenees village of Erro, around 21 miles from Pamplona, northern Spain, Monday, Nov. 30, 2020. The surge in Europe is happening despite the retaining wall of measures erected since the spring, including facilities tailored only for residents with the coronavirus. It’s also pitching authorities and elder care professionals in a race against the clock before mass vaccinations can begin.
Residents sit in a living room and watch TV at the Icaria nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Nov. 27, 2020. The surge in Europe is happening despite the retaining wall of measures erected since the spring, including facilities tailored only for residents with the coronavirus. It’s also pitching authorities and elder care professionals in a race against the clock before mass vaccinations can begin.
Residents have lunch at Amavir Ibaneta nursing home, in the small Pyrenees village of Erro, around 21 miles from Pamplona, northern Spain, Monday, Nov. 30, 2020. The surge in Europe is happening despite the retaining wall of measures erected since the spring, including facilities tailored only for residents with the coronavirus. It’s also pitching authorities and elder care professionals in a race against the clock before mass vaccinations can begin.
A funeral home worker moves a body in a morgue of an elderly person who died of COVID-19 in a nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020. Virus cases among the elderly are again on the rise across Europe, causing havoc and rising death tolls in nursing homes despite the lessons of a tragic spring. Authorities are in a race to save lives as they wait for crucial announcements on mass vaccinations.
Wearing protective suits to prevent infection, mortuary workers remove the body of an elderly person who died of COVID-19 from a nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. Virus cases among the elderly are again on the rise across Europe, causing havoc and rising death tolls in nursing homes despite the lessons of a tragic spring. Authorities are in a race to save lives as they wait for crucial announcements on mass vaccinations.
A patient with COVID-19 is helped by a caretaker during a physical therapy session at the Vitalia Canillejas elderly care home in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. The surge in Europe is happening despite the retaining wall of measures erected since the spring, including facilities tailored only for residents with the coronavirus. It’s also pitching authorities and elder care professionals in a race against the clock before mass vaccinations can begin.
Mortuary workers carry the body of an elderly person who died of COVID-19 after removing it from a nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. Virus cases among the elderly are again on the rise across Europe, causing havoc and rising death tolls in nursing homes despite the lessons of a tragic spring. Authorities are in a race to save lives as they wait for crucial announcements on mass vaccinations.
A patient with COVID-19, right, talks with relatives through a tablet at the Vitalia Canillejas elderly care home in Madrid, Spain, Monday, Nov. 23, 2020. The surge in Europe is happening despite the retaining wall of measures erected since the spring, including facilities tailored only for residents with the coronavirus. It’s also pitching authorities and elder care professionals in a race against the clock before mass vaccinations can begin.
Residents look at the street through a window at the Icaria nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020. Virus cases among the elderly are again on the rise across Europe, causing havoc and rising death tolls in nursing homes despite the lessons of a tragic spring. Authorities are in a race to save lives as they wait for crucial announcements on mass vaccinations.
MADRID (AP) — As the two mortuary workers pushed a stretcher with a bagged corpse out of the room, the elderly man in the adjacent bed briefly awakened from his dementia. “Is he dead?” he muttered, extending his arm, trying to touch his roommate for the last time.
Reflecting on a scene repeated too many times, one of the workers, Manel Rivera, despaired at the growing number of elderly people dying as the coronavirus resurges.
“The sad thing is,” he said of the surviving man in the Barcelona nursing home, “in a few days we’ll probably come back for him.”
Mortuary workers are again busy around-the-clock in nursing homes and hospices across Europe, amid outbreaks that this time are causing havoc mostly in facilities spared during the spring. In the U.S., patients in nursing homes and long-term care facilities and those who care for them have accounted for a staggering 39% of the country’s 281,000 coronavirus deaths.
The surge in Europe is happening despite the retaining wall of measures erected since the spring, including facilities tailored only for residents with coronavirus. It’s also pitching authorities and elder care professionals into a race against the clock before mass vaccinations can begin.
In response, Portugal has deployed military units to train nursing home staff in disinfection. In France, where at least 5,000 institutionalized elderly have died in the past month, and in Germany and Italy, where the summer respite has been followed by an upward turn since September, visits by relatives to nursing homes are being restricted again or banned altogether.