9 nuns die at Coivd-19 after the outbreak on the Adrian Dominican Sisters campus in Michigan

Now nine people have died from the disease following an outbreak with 48 of the 217 residents of the campus testing positive. Thirteen active Covid-19 cases remain and 26 recover, Adrian Dominican Sisters said in a statement.
“We spent nine months keeping the coronavirus at bay. It infiltrated before Christmas,” Sister Patricia Siemen told CNN affiliate WDIV. Siemen is the leader of the order.

“It’s numb,” she said. “I have a much deeper appreciation for all the other families who have been through this. The hundreds of thousands of families. And until it touches you personally, I do not care how much we can have a sympathetic heart, it’s different than you were there and you lost someone. ‘

The nine sisters – Dorothea Gramlich (81), Helen Laier (88), Jeannine Therese McGorray (86), Charlotte Moser (86), Esther Ortega (86), Mary Lisa Rieman (79), Ann Rena Shinkey (87), Margaret Ann Swallow (97) and Mary Irene Wischmeyer (94) – passed away between 11 and 26 January. Most sisters have already been at high risk due to existing health issues, reports WDIV.

The women all served communities as teachers or nurses during their lifetime of religious service.

Monastery outside Detroit lost 13 nuns to Covid-19, while 12 died in one month
This is the latest of a number of such outbreaks at monasteries. Eight nuns living in Notre Dame or Elm Grove, Wisconsin, died within a week of Covid-19 late last year. In a convent outside Detroit, 13 nuns die within a month of April 10th.
The Our Lady of the Angels Convent in Greenfield, Wisconsin, lost six nuns in an outbreak last year.

Among the 363 staff members on campus, 60 tested positive according to ADS, with 15 active cases.

Residents on the Motherhouse campus and more than 50 of the organization’s frontline associates received the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 15, and more associates are still being vaccinated, ADS said.

“The care and safety of our sisters and staff is and remains our most important issue. We continue to practice strict protocols, including dedicated floors for COVID-19 patients, quarantines in our living communities and weekly testing of all residents and fellow residents. residents, workers to mitigate the spread of the virus, ”reads their statement.

The Sisters is a religious order of more than 500 women vows and 211 collaborators in 22 U.S. states, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Mexico, and Norway. The order has been based on the Motherhouse campus since 1884.

CNN’s Alta Spells contributed to this report.

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