Nine nuns die from Coivd-19 after an outbreak on Adrian Dominican Sisters’ campus in Michigan

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Now, nine have died from the disease following an outbreak in which 48 of the campus’s 217 residents tested positive. Thirteen active Covid-19 cases remain and 26 are recovering, Adrian Dominican Sisters said in a statement.
“We kept the coronavirus at bay for nine months. It slipped in just before Christmas,” sister Patricia Siemen told CNN subsidiary WDIV. Siemen is the prioress or leader of the order.

“It’s narcotic,” 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 don’t care how much we can have a sympathetic heart, it’s different when you’ve been 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 – died between January 11 and 26. Most sisters were already at high risk because of existing health problems, WDIV reported.

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

Monastery outside Detroit lost 13 nuns to Covid-19 and 12 died in one month
It is the latest of a number of such outbreaks in monasteries. Eight nuns living in the Notre Dame of Elm Grove in Wisconsin died within a week from Covid-19 late last year. In a monastery outside Detroit, 13 nuns died within a month from April 10.
Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Greenfield, Wisconsin lost six nuns in an outbreak last year.

Of the 363 employees on campus, 60 have tested positive, with 15 active cases, according to ADS.

Residents of the Motherhouse campus and more than 50 of the organization’s front-line workers received the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 15, and more employees are still being vaccinated, ADS said.

“The care and safety of our sisters and employees is and will remain our primary concern. We continue to apply strict protocols, including special floors for COVID-19 patients, quarantines within our residential communities and weekly tests of all residents and Co workers to ensure further dissemination. of the virus, “their statement said.

The Sisters are a religious order of more than 500 sworn women and 211 employees in 22 US 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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