Fixing Nursing-Home Death Traps Is Key to Europe’s Virus Fight
Half of the region’s fatalities have been in elder-care facilities
Nurses caring for a patient at a home in Spain.
Photographer: Alvaro Calvo/Getty Images
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When Spain went into coronavirus lockdown in March, Veronica Munoz’s grandparents were in a nursing home north of Madrid, sharing a room just big enough for their wheelchairs. Munoz and other family members called the facility daily to check on the couple, but they weren’t alerted to any concerns until Munoz’s 97-year-old grandfather, Jesus, had been ill for a week and was too frail to talk on the phone. On April 11, as Jesus got sicker, the staff moved his wife, Basila, out of the room. On April 12, he died alone—and Basila, 96, still hasn’t been told her husband of seven decades is dead.