Coronavirus care home crisis
THE region of Catalonia has made the decision to change the way it counts coronavirus deaths, seeing an immediate leap in fatalities from 3,242 to 7,097. As with the rest of Spain, deaths measured as “official” were only people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in hospitals. However, Catalonia is now adding in people who died in residential homes, health centres and at home, using data gathered from paperwork supplied by funeral parlours. The vast majority of these (1,810) were in residential homes, with 456 dying at home and 62 in local health centres. Over 7,000 elderly people in the region’s homes are showing signs of infection, many of whom will never be moved to hospital.
