Raoul Vinandy, Servior operational director, and Corinne Cahen, family & integration minister, spoke about the cluster at Niederkorn during a press conference, 23 March 2021 SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen

Raoul Vinandy, Servior operational director, and Corinne Cahen, family & integration minister, spoke about the cluster at Niederkorn during a press conference, 23 March 2021 SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen

As of the morning of Tuesday 23 March, there were 719 deaths linked to covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. This includes 324 from the country's retirement and care facilities. The figure is indeed an alarming one and is now pushing some politicians, the opposition, to question the management of the crisis by the majority.

Déi Lénk in a Tuesday press release explained in particular that "from all sides, voices are now being raised which affirm that somewhere in the past and in the history of the management of this pandemic by the government, fatal political mistakes have been made”. While in the Chamber of Deputies, on the basis of a motion by Michel Wolter (CSV), the ministers of family Corinne Cahen (DP) and health Paulette Lenert (LSAP) were questioned in particular, as was the health director, on the same topic.

One site is particularly representative of this situation, that of the Integrated Center for the Elderly (Cipa) "Um Lauterbann" in Niederkorn, which recently had a cluster that claimed 22 victims. “10 people are still positive today. Two are on oxygen, a third hospitalised. The other seven are asymptomatic", Cahen explained on Tuesday at a press conference dedicated specifically to this cluster.

"A retirement home is not a prison"

There were inevitably many questions about this drama which marked the spirits, but they can be summed up in only one: how did the virus arrive in this establishment with a capacity of 155 beds? Or put another way: how could 80 residents and 40 staff become infected in Niederkorn? A question for which no one has the answer today.

But there are inevitably hints. The “outdated” side of the building (a new institution will be in Bascharage in 2023) which did not make “cohorting” possible (that is to say the grouping of infected patients for treatment by a specific team) when there were four positive cases. The fact that the victims were also elderly (average age 88) and suffered from serious pathologies.

"[How] did the virus get in? A retirement home is not a prison. People come to work there. Residents can get out. You can't isolate everyone all the time. It is therefore possible that the virus could spread there," explained director of health Jean-Claude Schmit, who was also present at the press conference.

The latter stressed that the death rate in Niederkorn "is not necessarily higher than what we see abroad", while adding that he "does not want to trivialise the situation" and that "each death is already too many.”

Vaccination is not the basis of the cluster

The first case of infection having been detected in Niederkorn almost at the same time as the vaccination began there, it was not long before some people launched on social media that the vaccine was responsible for the cluster. “Vaccination cannot trigger infection,” he said on Tuesday. “It’s important to clarify that. People who say such things on social media mix everything up...” Or don't know anything about it.

In the case of Um Lauterbann, the time between vaccination and infection of most patients was too short for the vaccine to work. The Cipa facility was one of the last ones of Servior to receive the first dose. "For organisational reasons and according to an order defined with Copas [the federation representing health service providers to the at-risk population of the grand duchy],” Schmit explained. "And if the order had been different, there is nothing to say that a cluster would not have burst elsewhere." 

Eight deaths also in Kayl

At present, they are found in other establishments. Cahen cited those of Bofferdange, Rodange, Rédange, Schifflange and Kayl. The latter is also particularly affected. Eight of its 39 residents died, 25 tested positive, as did 13 members of its staff. It is also noted that a total of 64 people from the country's retirement and care homes are still positive.

The good news is that by the end of the week, residents of the 52 establishments in Luxembourg will have received the two doses of the vaccine. It remains to be seen now whether the immunity granted by it is superior to natural immunity. "I hope so...” said Schmit, while revealing that residents of Niederkorn who died today had already been infected with the virus for the first time. "But it seems that natural immunity is worse in those over 65..." he concluded.

This article was originally published in French on Paperjam.lu and has been translated and edited for Delano.