Emotions are running high this holiday season at the Martino Zanchi Foundation nursing home in northern Italy near Bergamo after months of near-total isolation for its residents. Long-time resident Celestina Comotti was disbelieving as a staff member read aloud a Christmas greeting from a family peering at her expectantly over a video call.

“Damn!’’ Comotti exclaimed when nursing home staff confirmed that her well-wishers - 9-year-old Simon, his sister Marta and mother Alessia - were people she had never met before. The 81-year-old woman dissolved into tears. "I am trembling,” she said, adjusting her eyeglasses.