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10 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 15 APRIL 2020 NEWS INTERNATIONAL Countries with highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths Country GLOBAL USA Spain Italy France Germany UK China Iran Turkey Belgium Netherlands Canada Switzerland Brazil Russia Portugal Austria Israel India Ireland Sweden S. Korea Peru Chile Japan Ecuador Poland Romania Norway Denmark Australia Czechia Pakistan Saudi Arabia Philippines Mexico Malaysia UAE Indonesia Serbia Panama Qatar Ukraine Luxembourg Dominican Republic Belarus Singapore Finland Total Cases 1,983,018 603,496 172,541 162,488 143,303 131,170 93,873 82,249 74,877 65,111 31,119 27,419 26,897 25,936 24,232 21,102 17,448 14,224 12,046 11,487 11,479 11,445 10,564 10,303 7,917 7,645 7,603 7,202 6,879 6,623 6,511 6,400 6,111 5,837 5,369 5,223 5,014 4,987 4,933 4,839 4,465 3,472 3,428 3,372 3,307 3,286 3,281 3,252 3,161 2,852 Deaths 125,121 25,195 18,056 21,067 15,729 3,272 12,107 3,341 4,683 1,403 4,157 2,945 898 1,174 1,378 170 567 384 123 393 406 1,033 222 230 92 143 355 263 351 139 299 61 161 96 73 335 332 82 28 459 94 94 7 98 69 183 33 10 64 112 Europe's nursing homes are likely coronavirus hotspots, officials fear THE small Italian village of Celleno thought it had escaped the coronavirus — nearly a month into Italy's national lockdown. No confirmed cases of the potentially deadly virus had been re- corded. The more than one thousand residents of the village on the outskirts of Rome breathed a collective sigh of relief. But in the past week all that has changed. First there were seven cases — stem- ming from a dinner friends had on the eve of the lockdown announced last month by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. And then came a big shock last week when a nursing home in the village for the elderly, Villa Noemi, recorded more than 30 cases among the frail residents. The virus has now spread. This week, the 42-year-old father of a five-year-girl and one of the nurs- ing-home residents died from coro- navirus, shocking the closely-knit village. Celleno and its modest lit- tle farms dotted around the rugged northern Lazio hills has now been sealed off by alarmed regional au- thorities with police checkpoints mounted on the four roads leading in and out of the village to prevent an- yone leaving or entering, except for emergency workers. "The situation is quite tough," says Moira Emidi, a 36-year-old restau- rant worker and neighbor of the fam- ily now mourning the death of Dan- iele Tundo, the little girl's father. Celleno's mayor, Marco Bianchi, says the whole crisis feels "surreal" and that village is fearful. The cases at the nursing home have "shaken the entire community." And he added: "Currently, 35 of the res- idents are positive for the virus; an- other four are negative and they have been transferred to a nearby farm- house where they are being looked after." He says he finds comfort from how Celleno is pulling together, though, saying the village "has never been so united." He adds: "The beau- tiful solidarity of many, many citizens comes as a great relief." Worst may not be over Nurses and relatives say they believe there has been an unnoticed spike in nursing home deaths, which is not showing up in the official coronavirus statistics. Emilio Tanzi, director of a 460-bed residence in the northern Italian town of Cremona, told Reuters that nursing homes are on the front lines of a crisis that predominantly affects the elderly but that, nonethe- less, nursing homes have been over- looked and not adequately supported. He said there had been a signifi- cant and "anomalous" increase in deaths since early March in nursing homes. "We don't know if there have been coronavirus deaths because the swabs haven't been done. We've cer- tainly seen high fevers and breathing difficulties. If we'd been in a position to know, we could have isolated these patients properly and avoided the ep- idemic," Tanzi said. Researchers are now trying to get to the bottom of where nursing homes fit into the coronavirus crisis. Ac- cording to incomplete data analyzed by researchers at the London School of Economics, about half of all coro- navirus deaths in parts of Europe may be happening in care homes for the elderly. The researchers are warning that a greater effort must be put into fight- ing the virus in nursing homes, oth- erwise deaths may keep climbing. Homes are ill-equipped to deal with the crisis, they say, because of chron- ic staffing shortages, lack of protec- tive gear and the paucity of testing for the virus. "Care homes are places where physical distancing is almost im- possible. It's like a perfect storm: a susceptible population, not being able to implement the measures and the staff are not well supported and trained enough. Many of the staff are care assistants with very little medical knowledge," said Adelina Comas-Herrera, one of LSE's data re- searchers. A government survey in Italy sug- gests 45% of all deaths in the coun- try from the virus may end up having originated in residential homes for the elderly. A view of the Pio Albergo Trivulzio nursing home in Milan, Italy