Umm Muhammed Umar

23.04.20

The World Health Organization said on Thursday that up to half of coronavirus-related deaths in Europe are taking place in care facilities such as nursing homes. The WHO’s top official for Europe, Hans Kluge, said a “deeply concerning picture” is emerging about residents of homes for the aged.

This suggests the pandemic may have been allowed to rage among some of their most defenceless populations, by public health authorities, as they concentrated on other aspects of their covid-19   response.

While a growing number of European countries are considering easing their lockdown measures, they may be neglecting areas where infection is still spreading. The official count of covid-19 victims may also be substantially understated, since in most countries statistics have not included the deaths of people who had been suspected to have contracted the disease, but were never tested to confirm it. Belgium is one of the few countries that is including suspected covid 19 deaths, and as a result has the highest per-capita death rate in the world.

Kluge said, “Up to half of those who have died from Covid-19 were resident in long-term care facilities. This is an unimaginable human tragedy.”

Meanwhile, in the United States, one in 10 nursing homes in America have reported cases of the coronavirus, with thousands of the country’s most vulnerable having died as a result.