A year of Covid in Italy and the enemies of freedom are always the same: the virus, fear and hypocrites
On the night of February 21, 2020, the first Italian case of positivity to Sars-Cov-2 is ascertained: Mattia Mestri, 38, hospitalized in Codogno hospital.
In a few weeks, Italy would face an event of historical significance, undoubtedly the most dramatic since the beginning of republican history: the lockdown .
At first, the measure is limited to certain areas with a transmissibility index (Rt) estimated between 2 and 3 (the whole of Lombardy together with many provinces of Emilia, Veneto and Piedmont), involving a total of about 15 million Italians .
Despite everything, one soon realizes the ineffectiveness of the measures. On the night between 7 and 8 March, exactly at 2.30 and after hours of panic that led crowds of Italians to board any train headed south, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte decides to extend the restrictions nationwide, formalizing the lockdown national total on 11 March.
You can go out – strictly with self-certification in hand – only for proven work and health needs and to go to the supermarket. Any public event is suspended and the country's production engine is shut down.
Despite the initial reassurances – on January 27 Conte appeared on television at Lilli Gruber exclaiming the famous "we are ready!" – nothing was planned: there are no masks, respirators, gowns, the pandemic plan is updated to 2006 and the health facilities are unprepared.
Just a few days before, the memorable hashtags – soon disappeared from social networks – #AbbracciaUnCinese and #MilanoNonSiFerma , accompanied by the aperitif in Milan of the secretary of the Democratic Party Nicola Zingaretti (among the first politicians to be infected) and by photos at the restaurant of the mayors of Bergamo and Cremona, respectively Giorgio Gori and Gianluca Galimberti.
In this context, the president of Lombardia Fontana, immediately after the news of the positivity of one of his collaborators, appeared in a video wearing a surgical mask. It is useless to recall the reactions of newspapers and politics: waves of indignation and Fontana blamed for having contributed to spreading the image of Italy as a “greasing country”.
As we all know, a few days later the media hunt would begin (and not only) for the greaser without a mask, the runner and those who walked the dog over 200 meters from home.
Beyond these incredible slips that have now passed into oblivion, the coronavirus has not only triggered the biggest health crisis since the end of the Second World War, but has created a very strong bond between the two greatest traumas of the 21st century: the attack on Twin Towers and the 2008 economic crisis.
The first was a shocking act that exposed the weaknesses – even of the largest Western democracy – in terms of security, while the financial crash certified our weaknesses from an economic point of view (sadly famous is the photo of the Greek pensioner crying in front of a bank in Thessaloniki).
The pandemic badly sums it all up: the easy loss of freedom and security, an unprecedented health shock, an economic meltdown that has dragged 500,000 businesses into the abyss, as well as a million Italians who are now in absolute poverty. After a year of pandemic, the enemies are still the same as 12 months ago: the virus and fear.
The post A year of Covid in Italy and the enemies of freedom are always the same: the virus, fear and hypocrites appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/un-anno-di-covid-in-italia-e-i-nemici-della-liberta-sono-sempre-gli-stessi-il-virus-la-paura-e-gli-ipocriti/ on Mon, 22 Feb 2021 04:57:00 +0000.