ROME (AP) — The Vatican is calling for a new paradigm of care for the elderly after what it calls the “massacre” wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. The Vatican’s Pontifical Council of Life issued a position paper Tuesday that made the case for a global rethink of how to care for people in their final years. It includes resisting rushing to institutional care in favor of adapting home environments to the needs of people as they age. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia noted at a press conference that more than half of Italy’s elderly dead during the initial outbreak lived in nursing homes.
