A Louisiana hospital has opened an inpatient hospice unit so that those dying of the new coronavirus don’t have to be separated from their loved ones, nola.com reports. East Jefferson General Hospital in Metarie will provide visitors with masks and other protective gear to enable them to be in the same room with patients on the 15-bed ward. The contagiousness of COVID-19 has stolen the comfort of a bedside visit from many people across the world. East Jefferson partnered with the state’s largest hospice chain to obtain regulatory approval, and the unit began accepting patients Thursday. The coronavirus has hit New Orleans particularly hard, with nearly 600 deaths and almost 12,000 infections reported so far.