An 81-year-old former Alpine veteran who won plaudits for serenading his COVID-affected wife outside her hospital window in November is now entertaining his fellow COVID patients in another nearby clinic near the northern Italian town of Piacenza. The former member of the crack 'Black Plumes' regiment, Stefano Bozzini, is playing his accordion for his fellow COVID sufferers at the virus centre at Cortemaggiore.

The old soldier is not in a serious condition, unlike his wife who died from complications due to COVID-19 in the hospital at Castelsangiovanni where his serenades made him famous. "Sometimes while I'm playing," he told the Libertà daily of Piacenza, "people come into the room and try