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How we report, at the Hemelrijck nursing home in Mol, Flanders, the son of one of the residents dressed up as Santa and visited the institution on December 6. According to a report in the Brussels Times, the man wore a mask, did not give gifts and did not enter rooms, only talking to residents in common areas.
However, the city’s coronavirus regulation wouldn’t have allowed it to do that either,
Mayor Wim Caeyers said the company that operates the nursing home did not report the visit to the city administration.
If they had, we would not have allowed it. The city administration was misinformed. We are very sorry for what happened. Based on the testimony of the photos, we can affirm that an irresponsible decision was made.
The mayor told the Brussels Times, referring to images published by the newspaper showing that residents of the nursing home did not wear a mask during the visit.
Since December 6, 26 residents of the Hemelrijck nursing home have died and 85, including 40 employees of the institution, have tested positive for coronavirus. According to a medical expert who told AFP, it is not yet certain that the man dressed as Santa brought the virus to the nursing home.
A well-known Belgian virologist Marc van Ranst wrote on his community page that most infected people contracted the virus from the same person, so volunteer Santa may have been a super-distributor.
The man fell ill a few days after visiting the nursing home, which had 169 residents before the outbreak spread, and was found to be coronavirus.
Joris Moonens, a spokesman for the Flemish health authority, told AFP that, in the absence of a formal complaint, no investigation had been launched against the man, who appeared not to know that he was infected with a coronavirus before visiting the residence.
Belgium has an extremely high per capita coronavirus death rate, with more than half of the deaths (11,066 people) living in nursing homes. Retirement houses are popular in the country: 71 out of every thousand people over 65 live in such institutions, and only Luxembourg and the Netherlands have a higher proportion in Europe. In Poland, 12 out of every thousand older people live at home.
(Cover image: Hemelrijck nursing home in Mol. Eric Lalmand / AFP)
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