As in many Afghan households, dinner at Dr Yousuf Aryubi’s home meant the whole family — his mother, his siblings, their children — sitting on the floor together around a mat laid with food on the carpet.

During one recent dinner, Aryubi confided to his youngest brother that he was worried. A patient he’d seen that morning had a cough and high fever.

Within two weeks, Aryubi and two of his siblings were dead, and dozens of family members were infected with the novel coronavirus.

Most crushing for them: they assumed the symptoms spreading among them were just a bad flu because the hospital never told them the results of their coronavirus tests, Aryubi’s youngest brother, Behtarin Paktiawal told The Associated Press.

Read the full AP story here.