Coronavirus: home deaths, the hidden toll of Italy’s Covid-19 crisis
- In the Lombardy region, scores are dying at home as symptoms go unchecked
- Doctors say many deaths could be avoided if people at home received prompt medical help, but medics are swamped and lack protective gear
It took Silvia Bertuletti 11 days of frantic phone calls to persuade a doctor to visit her 78-year-old father Alessandro, who was gripped by fever and struggling for breath.
Alessandro Bertuletti was pronounced dead at 1:10am on March 19, 10 minutes before an ambulance called hours earlier arrived. The only medication he had been prescribed, over the phone, was a mild painkiller and a broad-spectrum antibiotic.
“My father was left to die alone, at home, without help,” Bertuletti, 48, said. “We were simply abandoned. No one deserves an end like that.”
In Bergamo province alone, according to a recent study of death records, the real death toll from the outbreak could be more than double the official tally of 2,060, which only tracks hospital fatalities.
