... as ALL residents test positive for virus, second doses still to come

Covid-19 patient in care home talks with relatives through a tablet, Spain, November 23, 2020.

All 78 residents at a nursing home in central Spain have tested positive for Covid-19 after being given their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and at least seven people have died, staff confirmed on Monday.

Most of those who succumbed to the virus had existing conditions, according to Spanish news agency EFE, while four residents are currently hospitalized, and 12 staff have also been infected.

The huge outbreak is at the Lagartera Residence for the Elderly in the Toledo area, southwest of the capital Madrid.

The home’s 33 staff must now present a negative PCR test before they start work, and a spokesperson said that health measures to contain the spread of the virus are in place “at all times.”

“On January 13, all residents, including nursing home staff, were vaccinated with the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine, and after six days the first symptoms began to appear in ten of the residents,” they said in a statement.

Some members of staff began to go off sick with the virus five days after being inoculated.

On January 21, management approved the decision to test all residents of the home and quarantine them to their rooms, with families informed of the move.

The testing results, on January 25, showed that all the residents had caught the virus apart from one, who then also tested positive at a later date.

In December, Spain’s Supreme Court ordered an investigation into deaths at nursing homes, which were a disturbing feature of the early pandemic, making up 69 percent of all Covid-19 fatalities between April 6 and June 20.

The Lagartera Residence for the Elderly insisted the current outbreak was its first of the pandemic, having remained virus-free during the first two waves of infections.

The next doses of the vaccine are to be administered at the home on February 3, and the next round of PCR tests will be carried out on February 5.

Across Spain, almost 1.5 million people have been injected with either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

More than 58,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Spain and the country has registered more than 2.7 million cases of the virus in total.