Families grieve as Victoria braces for 500th death

The tragedy in aged care has driven the state’s death spiral, with nursing home residents accounting for 343 fatalities.

St Basil’s resident Nicolina Pingiaro, who died in the Epworth Hospital. Picture: Facebook

Victoria is set to reach a grim milestone on Friday as it braces for its 500th coronavirus death.

The still-unfolding tragedy in aged care has driven the rapid death spiral, with nursing home residents accounting for 343 of the fatalities.

As of Thursday, 485 Victorians had lost their lives to COVID-19, 465 in the vicious second wave that began in late June and continues to rip through Melbourne and its surrounds.

The country is breathing a collective sigh of relief that overall case numbers in the worst-afflicted state are finally subsiding, down to 113 on Thursday out of a national total of 124.

But the second statistic tweeted out daily, the death tally, is too often an afterthought.

It shouldn’t be. It is nearly 500 families trying to bury their loved one as best they can in stage-four lockdown, having to decide amid their grief which 10 people can mourn at the funeral.

It is children and grandchildren having restricted access to their elderly relatives.

It is the last rites administered by video or live streaming.

The ripple effect of the COVID second wave will be deeply felt in the state and national economy for years to come, but it also will be felt in the hearts and psyches of thousands of grieving relatives and friends.

Five hundred is a lot of coffins. A lot of death. And with more than 1100 active cases of coronavirus among nursing home residents, there will be more.

About one in six people aged 80 or older who contract COVID-19 is dying from it.

Victoria was largely spared in the first wave. From January to June it recorded only 20 deaths of the national total of 104. But from there the numbers steepled. It has recorded 465 deaths while the rest of the nation recorded only three.

Victoria has had more deaths from the coronavirus so far this month (372) than the rest of the nation has had cases (269). And it has recorded deaths in double figures on all but seven days of the month to date, with 43 people dying in the past two days alone.

Going back to the beginning of the pandemic, Victoria sits far out in front on the grisly COVID death league table, with 485 out of a ­national total of 572.

NSW is next with 54, Tasmania with 13, Western Australia at nine, Queensland and South Australia with four deaths each and the ACT with three. Queensland hasn’t ­recorded a death since April 5.

 

The data reveals deaths are primarily, but not exclusively, among older people. Of the 485 total in Victoria, 357 have been over 80. But 12 people in their 50s have died, as has a person in their 20s.

The demographics aren’t surprising when nursing homes ­account for such a significant proportion. But behind the numbers are the stories. Every death has a hundred stories.

Ilias and Hrissoula Trimbo, married for 53 years, and both residents of St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in the northern Melbourne suburb of Fawkner, died of the virus within a week of each other.

The family of St Basil’s resident Maria Vasilakis said they had only five minutes with her in the emergency department of the Northern Hospital for their final farewell.

As the overall number of COVID cases trends down in Victoria from the high of 725 cases on August 5, new cases continue to be discovered in aged care. The most recent data from the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre on Thursday reveals that in the previous 24 hours an additional 50 new cases were reported in aged care, comprising 15 residents, 23 staff and 12 close contacts.

St Basil’s residents Hrisoula Trimbos, 78, and her husband, Ilias, 81, both died after contracting COVID-19. Picture: Facebook

Nevertheless the Andrews and Morrison governments have indicated growing confidence that the aged-care sector, and the spread of coronavirus more generally, is ­stabilising. “Victoria has turned the corner,” Scott Morrison said on Thursday. “We’ve seen again the continuation of lower numbers (though) nowhere near what we’d like them to be and the fatalities we continue to see are devastating.”

Daniel Andrews talked of the resilience of his state in the face of the virus. “Victorians are doing an amazing job … in very challenging and difficult circumstances,” he said. “I think that every Victorian can be positive about the fact these numbers are coming down.

“There will come a time, hopefully soon, we’ll see those numbers in double digits and we can have with greater confidence a really clear discussion about what the back end of September looks like, what October, November, December looks like, pushing into 2021.”

VACRC executive officer Joe Buffone was also confident that the hardest days of the outbreak were behind the aged-care sector.

“The co-ordinated effort has seen a stabilisation across aged-care facilities and, while we recognise that the pandemic is not over, we have experienced a reduction in facilities that require acute intervention,” he said. “There is ­always a human face at the front of our mind as we respond to these outbreaks — we are doing everything we can to help protect our most vulnerable seniors.”