Grim find: Bodies of virus victims in nursing homes

Madrid — Spanish army troops disinfecting nursing homes have found, to their horror, some residents living in squalor among the infectious bodies of people suspected of dying from the new coronavirus, authorities said Tuesday.

Defense Minister Margarita Robles said the elderly residents were “completely left to fend for themselves, or even dead, in their beds.” She said the discovery over the weekend included several nursing homes but did not name them or say how many bodies were found.

A judicial probe into the horrific discovery was opened Tuesday as Spain announced a record one-day jump of nearly 6,600 new coronavirus infections, bringing the overall total to more than 39,600. The number of deaths also leaped by a record 514 to almost 2,700, second only to Italy and China.

As bodies piled up, Madrid took over a public skating rink as a makeshift morgue after the city facility overflowed. To date, 1,535 people have died in the hard-hit Spanish capital, more than half of the national total. The capital region has over 12,350 infections.

“This is a tough week,” Dr. Fernando Simón, head of Spain’s health emergency center, told a daily news briefing.

Relatives of elderly people and retirement homes’ workers expressed growing concern about the situation at the centers.