ITALY AND CORONAVIRUS

CORONAVIRUS IN ITALY - "THE 70 YEARS OLD AND OVER ARE OUT!" 
 The Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital, a large, modern medical facility in a prosperous Italian city that has been overwhelmed by the coronavirus disease. There aren’t enough ventilators to intubate all patients with Covid-19 who have severe breathing trouble. 
 The intensive-care unit is taking almost no patients older than 70 YEARS, doctors said. 
 “Some of them would have needed intubation in intensive care,” anesthesiologist Pietro Brambillasca said. The rest ought to be better isolated, he said, where they can’t contaminate anyone. That is no longer possible. 
The number of ill has outstripped the hospital’s capacity to provide the best care for all. Italy’s death toll from the coronavirus hit 2,158 on Monday, up 349 since Sunday. The country is on course to overtake China’s 3,099 deaths within days. Its large elderly population is especially vulnerable to Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. 
 Since then, Italy’s lockdown has turned Bergamo into a ghost town. Death notices in the local newspaper, the Bergamo Echo, normally take up just over a page. On Monday, they filled nine pages. “And that’s just the ones that are in the paper,” Dr. Nacoti said. Doctors taking a break at the Papa Giovanni swap stories of woe, including the call from an elderly care home reporting suspected virus sufferers who were over 80 YEARS OLD. The hospital said the elderly residents had to stay put. 
 In small towns around the province of Bergamo, the pressure on local hospitals is even greater. The hospital had planned to send severe cases to Bergamo. “But we got indications that, if patients are over 65 or 70 YEARS OLD, they won’t get intubated,” said Davide Grataroli, one of the hospital doctors. 
“So, we’ve chosen to manage them here as best we can.” That has been the situation for nearly three weeks. The patients know that the lack of intensive-care facilities dooms those not strong enough to survive the disease with limited help. “They accept it with resignation and no complaints,” said Ms. Busi, the nurse. “The most devastating part is that they are dying alone,” she said. “Families see the patient for the last time at the emergency room. The next time is at the mortuary.” Such a lonely death is hard to take, the nurse said: “It’s not our culture. We’re very connected here.” 
see story wsj

 see story the telegraph