The government has decided to appoint a task force to determine the causes behind the Covid-19 infection chains which occurred in numerous retirement and nursing homes.

It has been announced that Jeannot Waringo will coordinate the investigation.

The National Health Directorate has confirmed this information, after the author of the report on the Grand Ducal court had already stated to RTL on Monday that he would be willing to accept this mission.

The Ministry of Health stated that Minister of Health Paulette Lenert had asked Waringo on behalf of the government and welcomed his decision to accept the task. Negotiations with other national and international experts are ongoing.

Mars di Bartolomeo, the president of the Parliamentary Health Commission, explained that the task force will analyse whether the necessary sanitary procedures had been respected and also include assisted living facilities in its assessment.

Bartolomeo stressed that the core team, which will consist of around half a dozen experts, will receive "all of the resources they require" to finish their mission in a relatively short amount of time, i.e. more or less two months.

Despite the fact that the vaccination campaign had already started in many retirement and care homes, coronavirus outbreaks occurred in a number of facilities at the beginning of the year. For instance, 22 people died following a Covid-19 infection in the "Um Lauterbann" home in Niederkorn between mid-February and mid-March.

MP Marc Baum from the Left Party (Déi Lénk) had previously criticised that when it comes to the task force's goals, the legal aspect is being ignored. Baum stressed that from a political point of view, it is important to know whether the legal framework at the time was adequate to the situation at hand and whether the respective ministers had issued regulations that went far enough.

The text was adapted following the MP's criticism, a decision which was welcomed by Baum.

At the end of March, MP Michel Wolter from the Christian Social People's Party (CSV) spearheaded the opposition's demands that the causes behind the clusters in retirement homes must be investigated. Wolter stated on Monday that he was very happy that his demands have been heard.