Virus challenges: Europe's lesson on how to protect elderly, educate young
COPENHAGEN: The challenges of caring for the elderly and educating the young amid the devastating coronavirus pandemic were on full display Wednesday as Italian police investigated scores of deaths at the country's biggest nursing home and Denmark began reopening schools for its youngest students.
Alarming death tolls in nursing homes, often unreported in official coronavirus tallies because residents are not tested for the virus, are emerging around the world.
In the United States, an Associated Press tally indicates at least 4,300 deaths have been linked to the virus in nursing homes and long-term care facilities nationwide.
The World Health Organisation was on the hot seat as U.S. President Donald Trump announced a halt to American payments to the group, pending a review of its warnings about the coronavirus and China.
Trump, whose own response to the virus has been called into question, criticized the U.N. health agency for not sounding the alarm over the coronavirus sooner.
An investigation by The Associated Press has found that six days of delays by China - from January 14 to January 20 - in alerting the public to the growing dangers of the virus set the stage for a pandemic that has upended the lives of millions, sideswiped the global economy and cost nearly 127,000 lives.
Police in Milan on Tuesday searched the 1,000-bed Pio Albergho Trivulzio facility, where 143 people have reportedly died in the past month.
Prosecutors began a probe after staff complained that management prohibited doctors and nurses from wearing protective masks, for fear of alarming residents.
The facility has insisted it followed all security protocols and says it is cooperating with the investigation.
Caroline Abrahams, director of the charity Age U.K., said the government's daily coronavirus death toll updates "are airbrushing older people out like they don't matter."
The situation in Italian nursing homes is so dire that the region of Lombardy launched an independent investigative commission.
Lombardy, the epicenter of the Italian outbreak, is home to 28 per cent of all Italian elderly care facilities.
Italy's National Institutes of Health has also launched a survey on nursing home deaths, which in its latest update found that 3,859 people had died in facilities nationwide through April 6, or 8.4 per cent of the residents, though there's no indication how that compares to previous years.
Pope Francis dwelled on their plight Wednesday at his morning mass in the Santa Marta Residence where he lives.
"We pray today for the elderly, especially for those who are isolated in elderly homes," he said.
"They are afraid, afraid of dying alone, the feel this pandemic as something aggressive. They are our roots, our history, they gave us faith, traditions, a sense of belonging to a nation.
While schools in many countries remain closed, Denmark on Wednesday allowed some of its youngest students, from preschool to fifth grade, to return to classrooms.
Older students must still study online from home.
"I'm very impressed. The children are very happy to see their buddies again," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the TV2 channel as she attended the first school day in Valby, suburban Copenhagen.
"Many children feel just like cows going to grass. They feel like jumping and dancing and being with their pals, but there are some safety rules," said Claus Hjortdal, head of Denmark's school principals' association.
Signe Wilms Raun, whose son Hugo returned to preschool at the Langhoej school in Hvidovre, hoped that the school day is more than washing hands and social distancing.
"Can they play football in the schoolyard or will it all be about keeping their distances?" Wilms Raun asked.