Italy, Pandemic's New Epicenter, Has Lessons for the World - The New York Times - 0 views
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Governments beyond Italy are now in danger of following the same path, repeating familiar mistakes and inviting similar calamity. And unlike Italy, which navigated uncharted territory for a Western democracy, other governments have less room for excuses.
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In the critical early days of the outbreak, Mr. Conte and other top officials sought to down play the threat, creating confusion and a false sense of security that allowed the virus to spread.
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They blamed Italy’s high number of infections on aggressive testing of people without symptoms in the north, which they argued only created hysteria and tarnished the country’s image abroad.
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Even once the Italian government considered a universal lockdown necessary to defeat the virus, it failed to communicate the threat powerfully enough to persuade Italians to abide by the rules, which seemed riddled with loopholes.
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Still, he acknowledged that the health minister had struggled to persuade his government colleagues to move more quickly and that the difficulties of navigating Italy’s division of powers between Rome and the regions resulted in a fragmented chain of command and inconsistent messages.
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Politicians across the spectrum worried about the economy and feeding the country, and found it difficult to accept their impotence in the face of the virus.
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Most importantly, Italy looked at the example of China, Ms. Zampa said, not as a practical warning, but as a “science fiction movie that had nothing to do with us.” And when the virus exploded, Europe, she said, “looked at us the same way we looked at China.”
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A day later, on March 9, when the positive cases reached 9,172 and the death toll climbed to 463, Mr. Conte toughened the restrictions and extended them nationally.
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But he also had not had any direct contacts with China, and experts suspect he contracted the virus from another European, meaning Italy did not have an identifiable patient zero or a traceable source of contagion that could help it contain the virus.
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The virus had already been active in Italy for weeks by that time, experts now say, passed by people without symptoms and often mistaken for a flu
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“Who we call ‘Patient One’ was probably ‘Patient 200,’ ” said Fabrizio Pregliasco, an epidemiologist.
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Mr. Fontana, who had been pressing the central government for tougher action, agreed. He said that the mixed messages from Rome and the easing of restrictions had led Italians to believe “that everything was a joke, and they kept living as they used to.”
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“They were convinced that the situation was less serious and they did not want to hurt our economy too much,”
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some regional governors independently ordered people coming from the newly locked-down area to self quarantine. Others didn’t.
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Mr. Ricciardi said Italy had the bad luck of having a super spreader in a densely populated and dynamic area who went to the hospital not once, but twice, infecting hundreds of people, including doctors and nurses.“He was incredibly active,” Mr. Ricciardi said.
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Italy is still paying the price of those early mixed messages by scientists and politicians. The people who have died in staggering numbers recently — more than 2,300 in the last four days — were mostly infected during the confusion of a week or two ago.
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Roberto Burioni, a prominent virologist at the San Raffaele University in Milan, said that people had felt safe to go about their usual routines and he attributed the spike in cases last week to “that behavior.”
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On Friday, Mr. Fontana complained that the 114 troops the government deployed were insignificant, and that at least 1,000 should be sent. On Saturday, he closed public offices, work sites and banned jogging. He said in an interview that the government needed to stop messing around and “apply rigid measures.”
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“At least this slows down the virus’ speed,’’ Mr. Zaia said, arguing that testing helped identify potentially contagious people without symptoms. ‘‘And slowing down the virus’ speed allows the hospitals to breathe.’’