while canadians scattered all around the world desperately tried to fly back home, bev kauffeldt did the opposite — she made urgent plans to fly into the eye of the covid-19 storm.
now, the whitehorse-born, salmon arm, b.c.-raised former calgarian is the samaritan’s purse team lead for a 68-bed field hospital in the parking lot of a large hospital in cremona, a city in northern italy, just south of milan.
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kauffeldt has a lot of experience with infectious diseases. she and her husband, kendell, worked for samaritan’s purse for 14 years in the west african country of liberia, where kendell was the country director.
in 2014, the ebola virus hit liberia with a vengeance, causing the couple to pause all of their programs — which included providing safe water to the country and literacy programs — to focus on fighting a killer virus that threatened to wipe out the entire country. thankfully, their efforts and that of their friend, dr. kent brantly, who took the first ebola cure, helped wipe out ebola instead.
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in italy, which has the second most elderly population in the world next to japan, the death rate from covid-19 is almost 10 per cent.
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the group has committed to stay in italy for 90 days, when hopefully they will no longer be as needed. meanwhile, according to the world health organization, there were 743 new covid-19 deaths in italy on wednesday for a total of 6,820.