Nine residents of a retirement home for nuns in Michigan died from coronavirus in January, authorities said Thursday. The wave of deaths came after the home had gone nine months without any coronavirus cases until an outbreak earlier in January. “We’re grieving, but we also know that we are not alone in this,” Sister Patricia Siemen, the leader of the nun’s order, told the Associated Press.

On Jan. 14 the facility announced an outbreak of the virus among employees and residents and said “stringent protocols” were being followed to contain it. Residents and more than 50 staff members received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 15, but it was too late for many of them. More than 200 retired nuns live at the Adrian Dominican Sisters facility 75 miles outside of Detroit. Nuns have died in multiple COVID-19 outbreaks across the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, including eight who died in one week at a convent in December.