A “healthy and strong” family of four all died of COVID-19 in the same Italian hospital within the same week, according to reports.
Blacksmith Alfredo Bertucci, 86, was killed by the disease last Friday — with sons Daniele, 54, and Claudio, 46, also succumbing soon after, Italian daily newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano said.
The family’s 77-year-old matriarch, Angela Albergati — who had been so sick in the same hospital that she did not know she had lost her loved ones — died Wednesday morning, according to The Sun, citing local media.
“We are all so upset, it is a real tragedy,” family friend Massimo Giovanni Fasano said, according to the UK paper.
“They were all so healthy and strong.”
All four died in Voghera hospital in Lombardy, the Italian region hit hardest by the pandemic.
As of Thursday morning, Italy has registered more than 110,000 cases with more than 13,000 deaths, the highest in Europe and second globally only to the US, which has almost twice as many cases but fewer deaths.