These neighbors were good friends with each other. The women across the street made some food. They hung it on a rope connecting the two balconies through a loop. They pulled on the rope to move the..
Studio: Jukin Media
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Woman Passes Food to Neighbor Through Rope Tied on Balcony Across Street
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Top EU court: eastern states broke law by refusing refugees
The European Union's top court ruled on Thursday that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic had broken the law by refusing to host refugees to help ease the burden on southern states such as Greece..
Studio: Reuters Studio
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Senior Citizens sing from their balconies
Residents of Brookdale Senior Living sing from balconies
Studio: 41 Action News
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Special report: Into The Red Zone
Sky News' Special Correspondent Stuart Ramsay charts the days when coronavrius spread from China to ravage Northern Italy.
Studio: Sky News UK Studios
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Coronavirus: Most affected countries as infected toll passes one million
A look at which ten countries have had the most confirmed cases of coronavirus as the total number of confirmed infected hits 1,000,000.
Studio: PA - Press Association STUDIO
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Global Coronavirus Cases Surpass One Million
Global coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million on Thursday. The pandemic has exploded in the United States and the death toll continues to climb in Italy and Spain. The virus has killed more than 51,000..
Studio: Wochit News
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Global Coronavirus Cases Surpass One Million
Global coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million on Thursday.
The pandemic has exploded in the United States and the death toll continues to climb in Italy and Spain.
The virus has killed more than..
Studio: Wochit
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Researchers Looking To Nitric Oxide As Possible Treatment For Coronavirus Patients
Researchers in Massachusetts and Italy, are investigating a well-known medical treatment as a possible COVID-19 treatment.
Clinical trials have begun in order to find out whether inhaled nitric oxide..
Studio: Wochit
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Researchers Looking To Nitric Oxide As Possible Treatment For Coronavirus Patients
Researchers in Massachusetts and Italy, are investigating a well-known medical treatment as a possible COVID-19 treatment. Clinical trials have begun in order to find out whether inhaled nitric oxide..
Studio: Wochit News
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Iceland Allows Everyone In The Country To Be Tested For Coronavirus
Iceland, home to about 364,000 people, is taking a different approach to the coronavirus than other countries. According to Reuters, the Icelandic government allows testing for anyone who wants it...
Studio: Wochit News
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Iceland Allows Everyone In The Country To Be Tested For Coronavirus
Iceland, home to about 364,000 people, is taking a different approach to the coronavirus than other countries.
According to Reuters, the Icelandic government allows testing for anyone who wants..
Studio: Wochit
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A new low-cost solar technology for environmental cooling
Torino, Italy (SPX) Mar 30, 2020Space cooling and heating is a common need in most inhabited areas. In Europe, the energy consumed for air conditioning is rising, and the situation could get worse in the near future due to the temperature increase in different regions worldwide. The increasing cooling need in buildings especially during the summer season is satisfied by the popular air conditioners, which often make use of ref Reported by Solar Daily 7 hours ago.
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10 Things to Know for Today
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today: 1. VIRUS DEATHS, UNEMPLOYMENT ACCELERATING Coronavirus deaths mount in Spain, Italy and New York, while the outbreak throws 10 million Americans out of work in just two weeks and sickens more than a million people. 2. ‘WE NEED […]
Reported by Seattle Times 1 day ago.
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Fascinating Google data from 131 countries shows where people go amid lockdowns — with park and grocery visits plummeting as much as 90%
· Google has released aggregated location data from 131 countries that shows how people are moving around during the coronavirus pandemic.· The data compares footfall from up to a few days ago to a baseline taken from the beginning of this year.
· In many Western countries, visits to recreational and retail locations, grocery shops, transit stations, and workplaces have plummeted.
· In some East Asian countries, such as South Korea and Taiwan, visits to grocery shops and parks have actually increased.
· Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Location data released by Google paints a fascinating picture of how the world moves around during a pandemic.
Google on Thursday released aggregated location data from 131 countries showing how people are moving around amid widespread, restrictive lockdowns.
Google's data notes changes in attendance to retail and recreation locations (e.g. cinemas, restaurants, museums); groceries and pharmacies; parks; transit stations; workplaces; and residential areas.
As its "baseline" average, Google used location data from the beginning of the year (January 3 to February 6), and compared that to data up until just a few days ago.
China, which was at the epicenter of the outbreak, was not included in the data.
In the US, where lockdown measures vary from state to state, the data broke down like this:
· 47% decrease in retail and recreation.
· 22% decrease in grocery and pharmacy visits.
· 19% decrease in visits to parks.
· 51% decrease in footfall to transit stations.
· 38% decrease in going to workplaces.
· 12% increase to residential locations.
These seem like big drops, but other Western countries experienced even bigger drops, suggesting the US isn't yet enforcing lockdowns as strictly as Europe.
In Italy, the first European country to encounter the outbreak, visits to retail and recreation plummeted by 94%, 85% for groceries and pharmacies, and 90% for parks.
Spain, which has been particularly hard-hit by the virus, also experienced a drop of 94% to retail and recreation, along with 76% for groceries and 89% for parks.
In the UK retail and recreation footfall fell by 85%, while grocery and pharmacy shopping dropped by 46% and visits to parks by 52%.
India has also seen a big drop of 77% to retail and recreation sites, along with 65% to grocery shops and 57% to parks.
*Asia is actually recording an increase in shopping and park visits and *
In some Asian countries, the effects of the virus on people's movements in recent days appear to have been less pronounced.
In Taiwan, which has used location data to keep quarantined citizens in "electronic fences" which alert the police if they leave their house, visits to retail and recreation sites only fell 9%, while visits to groceries and parks went up by 3% and 17% respectively.
South Korea has seen a 51% increase in visits to parks and an 11% increase for groceries. South Korea experienced its peak in coronavirus cases on February 29, and has steadily been flattening the curve since then without imposing a total lockdown. It also had dips of up to 40% attendance to parks up until early March, per Google's report.
Google says that the location data is anonymized and that it uses the same kind of data to show people on Google Maps when they're likely to run into traffic.
But Professor Mark Skilton, a digital communications expert from Warwick Business School, said the use of such data poses some difficult problems around the issue of consent.
"Anonymous data is commonly used in medical trials to test new and existing drugs, but that is consensual because participants are asked at the outset for permission to use their medical data. Using data from Google is an altogether more complex issue. While we do have legal precedent for law enforcement accessing mobile phones and private data in the case of terrorism and cybersecurity breaches, this use of large-scale data is ethically more difficult," said Skilton.
*SEE ALSO: The US is tracking people's movements with phone data, and it's part of a massive increase in global surveillance*
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Most maps of Louisiana aren't entirely right. Here's what the state really looks like. Reported by Business Insider 21 hours ago.
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'A taste of things to come': Italian services activity plunges to 11-year low as national lockdown weighs
· Italy's services activity contracted sharply in March, signaling the national lockdown is hammering the nation's economy.· IHS Markit's Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for the services sector shrank from 52.1 in February to just 17.4 in March, a record 34.7 point slide.
· The services downturn reflects emergency measures and shutdowns intended to restrict the coronavirus outbreak in Italy, IHS Markit said.
· Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Italy's service sector ground to a virtual halt in March, reflecting the strict national lockdown imposed by the government to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
IHS Markit's Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) reading for Italian services fell by nearly 35 points in March to 17.4 — an 11-year low — as activity slumped compared to February. A reading above 50 indicates an expansion in activity, while a reading below 50 suggests a contraction.
Italian businesses, part of the respondents to the survey, on Friday reported their fastest contraction on record with the quickest rate of job shedding in more than 22 years of data collection.
Chris Williamson, chief economist at IHS Markit, said Italy's services PMI fell to the lowest level of any comparable survey at his firm in March and signaled that this was a "taste of things to come for other countries as lockdowns intensify."
IHS Markit's related index for Italian manufacturing activity, released on Wednesday, fell from 48.7 in February to 40.3 in March — a modest decline compared to the services sector.
The services reading indicates an "extremely challenging time for the Italian economy" as it's the lowest number recorded since the global financial crisis, IHS Markit said.
Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, Italy's economy was already wobbling in the fourth quarter of 2019 with its gross domestic product contracting by 0.3%.
Lewis Cooper, an economist at IHS Markit, expects the impact to be felt for a long time as "sentiment with regards to activity over the coming 12 months plummeted to the lowest level on record."
More positively, analysts at Bank of America say the spread of Covid-19 is slowing and lockdowns should be eased from the middle of the second quarter.
Relaxing containment measures could allow for improvement in services activity, but BofA analysts still assume that Euro area PMIs will remain below 50 until August, they said in a research note on Friday.
*SEE ALSO: UK's biggest banks were hit with a warning to freeze their dividends during the Covid-19 uncertainty or face formal action*
*SEE ALSO: Bank of America forecasts a deep recession in Europe with the economy shrinking almost 8% this year*
*SEE ALSO: 'Truly horrifying': 6 economic surveys show coronavirus is hammering the global economy*
*SEE ALSO: The Fed is powerless to stop the market's riskiest debt from getting downgraded and defaulting, Goldman says*
*SEE ALSO: These 3 kinds of stocks will be ripe for the picking in the second half of 2020, UBS says*
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: How waste is dealt with on the world's largest cruise ship Reported by Business Insider 21 hours ago.
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Scramble for virus supplies strains global solidarity
ROME (AP) — San Marino needed medical masks. Badly.
The tiny republic, wedged next to what would be two of Italy’s hardest-hit provinces in the COVID-19 outbreak, had already registered 11 deaths by March 17 — a sizeable number in a country of just 33,000, and a harbinger of worse to come. So authorities sent off a bank transfer to a supplier in Lugano, Switzerland, to pay for a half-million masks, to be shared with Italian neighbors.
The next day, the truck returned, empty. The company was refusing to provide the masks.
Said Dr. Gabriele Rinaldi, director of San Marino's Health Authority: “It was a very bitter lesson.’’
It’s not clear whether the mask supplier, which was not identified, refused to deliver because another customer offered more. But what is clear is that the oft-proclaimed solidarity among nations waging battle against the pandemic has been tested — if not shattered — by national and corporate self-interest.
A health official in France's hard-hit eastern region said U.S. officials swooped in at a Chinese airport to spirit away a planeload of masks that France had ordered.
"On the tarmac, the Americans arrive, take out cash and pay three or four times more for our orders, so we really have to fight," Dr. Jean Rottner, an emergency room doctor in Mulhouse, told RTL radio.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris on Friday insisted that no one from the federal government bought masks destined for France. President Donald Trump has suggested, however, that states get their own medical equipment to fight the virus, setting off a mad scramble among state officials.
France, meanwhile, has laid claim to supplies within its borders. In Lyon, inside the main southern European distribution facility of the Swedish medical supply company Molnlycke, were... Reported by SeattlePI.com 21 hours ago.
The tiny republic, wedged next to what would be two of Italy’s hardest-hit provinces in the COVID-19 outbreak, had already registered 11 deaths by March 17 — a sizeable number in a country of just 33,000, and a harbinger of worse to come. So authorities sent off a bank transfer to a supplier in Lugano, Switzerland, to pay for a half-million masks, to be shared with Italian neighbors.
The next day, the truck returned, empty. The company was refusing to provide the masks.
Said Dr. Gabriele Rinaldi, director of San Marino's Health Authority: “It was a very bitter lesson.’’
It’s not clear whether the mask supplier, which was not identified, refused to deliver because another customer offered more. But what is clear is that the oft-proclaimed solidarity among nations waging battle against the pandemic has been tested — if not shattered — by national and corporate self-interest.
A health official in France's hard-hit eastern region said U.S. officials swooped in at a Chinese airport to spirit away a planeload of masks that France had ordered.
"On the tarmac, the Americans arrive, take out cash and pay three or four times more for our orders, so we really have to fight," Dr. Jean Rottner, an emergency room doctor in Mulhouse, told RTL radio.
The U.S. Embassy in Paris on Friday insisted that no one from the federal government bought masks destined for France. President Donald Trump has suggested, however, that states get their own medical equipment to fight the virus, setting off a mad scramble among state officials.
France, meanwhile, has laid claim to supplies within its borders. In Lyon, inside the main southern European distribution facility of the Swedish medical supply company Molnlycke, were... Reported by SeattlePI.com 21 hours ago.
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Apple Stores will reportedly remain closed until early May as the coronavirus continues to spread (AAPL)
· Apple expects that it will keep its retail stores closed until at least early May, according to reports from 9to5Mac and Bloomberg.· A company executive made the announcement in a memo to staff late Thursday.
· Apple had initially expected to start re-opening stores on a staggered basis in the first half of April, a previous report said.
· Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Apple expects to keep its retail stores outside of China closed until early May, according to reports from Bloomberg and 9to5Mac.
Deirdre O'Brien, Apple's senior vice president of people and retail, shared the update in a memo sent to staff, the reports said. Initially, Bloomberg had reported that some stores would begin to open on a staggered basis in the first half of April.
"We are continuing to monitor local conditions for every Apple facility on a daily basis, and we will make our reopening decisions on the basis of thorough, thoughtful reviews and the latest guidance from local governments and public health experts," O'Brien wrote in the memo, according to 9to5Mac.
Flexible work arrangements will also remain in place for employees until then, O'Brien wrote.
Apple did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for confirmation.
The announcement comes as Apple has been gearing up to prepare some retail employees to work from home as its stores around the world outside of China remain closed, which Bloomberg first reported. Training for remote employees is expected to start in the coming weeks.
Apple said on March 13 that it would close all of its stores outside of Greater China until March 27 as part of its response to COVID-19, the coronavirus disease. Just days later, a notice appeared on the company's website indicating that stores would remain closed indefinitely.
Apple has also canceled the in-person version of its Worldwide Developers Conference, which takes place in June, and a report from Nikkei Asian Review said the company is weighing whether it should delay its next major iPhone launch, expected to take place in the fall.
With 245,000 infections, the United States has reported the most cases, while Italy has reported the most COVID-19 deaths. The virus has spread to nearly all of the countries and territories in the world.
The coronavirus pandemic has hit the retail sector especially hard. Brands including JCPenny, Macy's, and the Gap, among others, have implemented furloughs or layoffs to cut back on costs as policies to close nonessential businesses have been enacted in at least 45 states.
*SEE ALSO: Apple is reportedly worried that people won't have the money to buy new iPhones this year, and it's an ominous sign of what's to come for people's finances*
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: People are still debating the pink or grey sneaker, 2 years after it went viral. Here's the real color explained. Reported by Business Insider 20 hours ago.
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Google's misinformation chief talks fact-checking the pandemic: 'I've never seen anything like this' (GOOG, GOOGL)
· Google is paying out $6.5 million to help fact-checking organizations around the world.· Google's head of information credibility explains the thinking behind the strategy: 'It's more global than ever, and it demands an answer that's more global than ever.'
· The company says it's also looking at ways to better surface fact-checked stories on Google News.
· Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Google announced it will contribute $6.5 million to fund to fact-checking organizations and nonprofits that are battling the spread of incorrect information about the coronavirus.
"This is really aimed at the misinformation fighting community, rather than journalism as a whole," Alexios Mantzarlis, news and information credibility lead for Google's News Lab, told Business Insider. "This is for that subset that is dealing with misinformation head-on."
It's the latest example of Big Tech being surprisingly proactive in fighting the effects of the pandemic, even though Google is still cleaning up misinformation on its own platform. Facebook recently announced it was investing $1 million to support fact-checkers during the pandemic.
The $6.5 million for fact-checkers will come out of the Google News Initiative, which works with journalists and publishers to combat misinformation. Some will go towards supporting the nonprofit First Draft, which provides various training tools for journalists, as well as to the International Fact-Checking Network. The initiative will also be giving to other organizations around the world including Full Fact and Maldita.es in Europe, PolitiFact and Kaiser Health News in the US, Data Leads in India, and Africa Check in Nigeria.
According to data from the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), the number of fact-checking organizations around the world grew to 188 in more than 60 countries in 2019, but 22.7% of those operate with budgets under $20,000.
Mantzarlis says Google chose to distribute the funding based on "where it can have most impact fastest in an ethically grounded way." Some of the partners have been supported by Google in the past.
However, among those getting money from Google there are some exceptions, not least of all Snopes, which is currently buckling beneath the huge weight of misinformation it's working through. Google would not comment on Snopes specifically, but said it works with fact-checkers where it thinks it can add value.
Some of the funds will be distributed to organizations that give journalists access to data and expertise, including SciLine, which has a database of experts on connect reporters with.
The biggest challenge right now, Mantzarlis believes, is how fact-checkers coordinate internationally to fight the rapid spread of misinformation between countries. "It's more global than ever, and it demands an answer that's more global than ever," he said. "I think the community of fact checkers is at a place where it's recognized it, and we want to turbo-charge that."
He points to trend lines showing topics of incorrect information moving from country to country. Google has targeted its funding to organizations in such a way that it hopes will combat this problem.
"I've never seen anything like this, where something in India is almost identically phrased as something in the United States or in my home country of Italy," Mantzarlis said. "The posts are literally making the same types of claims, transforming so the person who's allegedly the expert quoted in the WhatsApp message is no longer the nurse from Milan but your uncle the doctor in Seattle who's seeing the hospital system collapse."
Mantzarlis said health misinformation is most likely to be harmful, and is one of the topic Google sees the need to target most urgently, fake cures are the big one. "With COVID the wrong types of cures are the types of things people might be looking at and acting upon, and we're seeing real-life harm," he told Business Insider. "We're seeing people die of bootleg alcohol overdose. Those are the fact checks that we would like to find ways to surface to users who might be seeing the misinformation in their messages."
Google currently displays fact-checks in search results and on Google News, and says it plans to launch a dedicated fact-check section of its COVID-19 News page in the US and India.
But Mantzarlis said Google is also thinking about how it can better bring fact-checked stories to the forefront on its news search results in general. "We are looking at how, with the higher number of fact-checks we're seeing on COVID, whether there are ways to surface these more prominently to Google News users," he said.
"It is of course true that reporters fact check their work before they publish, that's not what's in question here," Mantzarlis said. "It's reflecting the fact we're getting our information from a million other sources that might not be fact-checked, and that there's value in that work as a standalone."
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Inside the US government's top-secret bioweapons lab Reported by Business Insider 19 hours ago.
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Vatican extends lockdown measures through Easter Monday
Vatican City, Apr 3, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- The Holy See has extended its lockdown measures through April 13, the Monday of the Octave of Easter, in accordance with Italy’s recently extended national lockdown, the Vatican announced Friday.
St. Peter’s Basilica and square, the Vatican Museums, and several other public offices in the Vatican City State have been closed for more than three weeks. Originally scheduled to last through April 3, these measures have now been extended an additional nine days.
A total of seven confirmed cases of the coronavirus have been diagnosed among Vatican employees to date.
According to a statement from Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See press office, departments of the Roman Curia and of the Vatican City State have continued working only “in essential, obligatory activities which cannot be deferred.”
The Vatican City State has its own legal order that is autonomous and separate from the Italian legal system, but the Holy See press office director has repeatedly said that Vatican City is implementing measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus in coordination with the Italian authorities.
During the Vatican lockdown, which went into effect March 10, the city state’s pharmacy and supermarket remain open. Instead the mobile post office in St. Peter’s Square, the photo service office, and bookstores are closed.
The Vatican continues “to ensure essential services to the Universal Church,” according to a March 24 statement. Reported by CNA 18 hours ago.
St. Peter’s Basilica and square, the Vatican Museums, and several other public offices in the Vatican City State have been closed for more than three weeks. Originally scheduled to last through April 3, these measures have now been extended an additional nine days.
A total of seven confirmed cases of the coronavirus have been diagnosed among Vatican employees to date.
According to a statement from Matteo Bruni, the director of the Holy See press office, departments of the Roman Curia and of the Vatican City State have continued working only “in essential, obligatory activities which cannot be deferred.”
The Vatican City State has its own legal order that is autonomous and separate from the Italian legal system, but the Holy See press office director has repeatedly said that Vatican City is implementing measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus in coordination with the Italian authorities.
During the Vatican lockdown, which went into effect March 10, the city state’s pharmacy and supermarket remain open. Instead the mobile post office in St. Peter’s Square, the photo service office, and bookstores are closed.
The Vatican continues “to ensure essential services to the Universal Church,” according to a March 24 statement. Reported by CNA 18 hours ago.
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Bergamo bishop: In coronavirus, churches as mortuaries an 'act of tenderness'
Rome, Italy, Apr 3, 2020 / 10:01 am (CNA).- The bishop at the epicenter of Italy’s coronavirus outbreak has said churches are serving as makeshift mortuaries as there are so many dead bodies “you do not know where to put them anymore.”
In an interview with CNA’s Italian-language partner agency ACI Stampa, Bishop Francesco Beschi of the Diocese of Bergamo said the use of churches “is an act of tenderness towards people who die alone and [whose] bodies are likely to remain piled up.”
The presence of the bodies in the church “is a gift of respect and concern,” he added.
The confirmed number of COVID-19 deaths across Italy as of April 2 was 13,915, according to Italian health officials. Of these, 2,060 deaths confirmed to be from the coronavirus occurred in the wider Bergamo province during the month of March.
The bishop said deaths are “multiplying,” and while many people are dying in hospital, there are also many who die at home, and who are not registered in official coronavirus death counts.
According to an analysis from the Wall Street Journal April 1, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Italy is likely much higher than official counts show.
Especially in the hardest-hit northern regions of the country, many people who have died outside the hospital were not tested for the coronavirus, especially large numbers of elderly living in nursing homes.
According to the WSJ report, in the city of Bergamo in March 2020 there were 553 deaths overall, among these, 201 confirmed coronavirus deaths. By comparison, in March 2019 there were only 125 total deaths in Bergamo.
“All of this is accompanied by very deep feelings,” Beschi noted.
He said one of the priests of his diocese confided in him the difficulty of losing his father to the coronavirus while his family is separated and under quarantine: “there is no funeral, he will be taken to the cemetery and will be buried, without anyone being able to participate in this moment of human and Christian piety which is now so important because it is missing.”
“Furthermore, when the patient is taken away from home with an ambulance and hospitalized among the infected or placed in intensive care, family members no longer see him, no longer hear from him, they cannot even speak to him by phone,” he added.
“The sorrow is immense.”
Among the many victims of COVID-19 in Bergamo are priests, the bishop said, stating that at least 25 priests of his diocese have died from the virus since March 6.
He said he finds it a comforting sign, however, that 60 priests with the coronavirus seem to be on the mend.
The Bergamo diocese has more than 700 priests and Beschi said he is “in constant contact” with them through messages of support and paternal affection.
“There is an inner force even wider and deeper than evil: this is the faith that is the sap in the roots of the people of Bergamo,” the bishop said, addressing Catholics and victims of the coronavirus.
The faith, he said, “will be the firmness on which to rebuild families, on which to restart work, on which to force the lever to lift an economy crushed to the ground, on which to have the strength to heal emotional wounds, on which to lean to revisit a grief that has only been swallowed up, on which to stand to look toward the horizon and start again.”
Offering a word of hope, Beschi said “these days extend shadows of death over our common life and our families and, at the same time, we cannot help but recognize the signs of spring.”
“The resurrection is the flower that blooms and anticipates the joy of being able to taste its fruit one day. It is the bud that is blooming.”
“To die like Christ and with Christ, in the events of our life, is to make the power of love dwell in our dead,” he stated. “We do not have the strength of the love of Christ but he confers it on us.”
The bishop said Italy has been through many crises, and people always say “we must learn from mistakes, we must not repeat them.”
He added that he does not have an answer for the many losses the families of his diocese are facing and will face after this pandemic.
The two decisive elements, he said, are solidarity in sharing and the exercise of personal responsibility. “If we manage to grow, at least a fruit will have come from this terrible story.” Reported by CNA 17 hours ago.
In an interview with CNA’s Italian-language partner agency ACI Stampa, Bishop Francesco Beschi of the Diocese of Bergamo said the use of churches “is an act of tenderness towards people who die alone and [whose] bodies are likely to remain piled up.”
The presence of the bodies in the church “is a gift of respect and concern,” he added.
The confirmed number of COVID-19 deaths across Italy as of April 2 was 13,915, according to Italian health officials. Of these, 2,060 deaths confirmed to be from the coronavirus occurred in the wider Bergamo province during the month of March.
The bishop said deaths are “multiplying,” and while many people are dying in hospital, there are also many who die at home, and who are not registered in official coronavirus death counts.
According to an analysis from the Wall Street Journal April 1, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Italy is likely much higher than official counts show.
Especially in the hardest-hit northern regions of the country, many people who have died outside the hospital were not tested for the coronavirus, especially large numbers of elderly living in nursing homes.
According to the WSJ report, in the city of Bergamo in March 2020 there were 553 deaths overall, among these, 201 confirmed coronavirus deaths. By comparison, in March 2019 there were only 125 total deaths in Bergamo.
“All of this is accompanied by very deep feelings,” Beschi noted.
He said one of the priests of his diocese confided in him the difficulty of losing his father to the coronavirus while his family is separated and under quarantine: “there is no funeral, he will be taken to the cemetery and will be buried, without anyone being able to participate in this moment of human and Christian piety which is now so important because it is missing.”
“Furthermore, when the patient is taken away from home with an ambulance and hospitalized among the infected or placed in intensive care, family members no longer see him, no longer hear from him, they cannot even speak to him by phone,” he added.
“The sorrow is immense.”
Among the many victims of COVID-19 in Bergamo are priests, the bishop said, stating that at least 25 priests of his diocese have died from the virus since March 6.
He said he finds it a comforting sign, however, that 60 priests with the coronavirus seem to be on the mend.
The Bergamo diocese has more than 700 priests and Beschi said he is “in constant contact” with them through messages of support and paternal affection.
“There is an inner force even wider and deeper than evil: this is the faith that is the sap in the roots of the people of Bergamo,” the bishop said, addressing Catholics and victims of the coronavirus.
The faith, he said, “will be the firmness on which to rebuild families, on which to restart work, on which to force the lever to lift an economy crushed to the ground, on which to have the strength to heal emotional wounds, on which to lean to revisit a grief that has only been swallowed up, on which to stand to look toward the horizon and start again.”
Offering a word of hope, Beschi said “these days extend shadows of death over our common life and our families and, at the same time, we cannot help but recognize the signs of spring.”
“The resurrection is the flower that blooms and anticipates the joy of being able to taste its fruit one day. It is the bud that is blooming.”
“To die like Christ and with Christ, in the events of our life, is to make the power of love dwell in our dead,” he stated. “We do not have the strength of the love of Christ but he confers it on us.”
The bishop said Italy has been through many crises, and people always say “we must learn from mistakes, we must not repeat them.”
He added that he does not have an answer for the many losses the families of his diocese are facing and will face after this pandemic.
The two decisive elements, he said, are solidarity in sharing and the exercise of personal responsibility. “If we manage to grow, at least a fruit will have come from this terrible story.” Reported by CNA 17 hours ago.
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