“Now if there is no mask, absolutely nothing is done. The mask is of no use to shit! To catch the virus, if I were positive, do you know what to do? You have to stay with me and kiss me for fifteen minutes with your tongue in your mouth, otherwise you won’t get the virus!“. The words of Giuseppe Zuccatelli immediately triggered a series of reactions from the world of politics. The video, published exclusively on ilGiornale.it by the journalist Michel Dessì, he has been around the web since this morning. And to think that just last night Giuseppe Conte, meeting the Council of Ministers urgently, appointed him as the new health commissioner in Calabria following the scandalous case of General Saverio Cotticelli who discovered on television that he had to deal with the Covid plan.
The premier, after the service aired on the broadcast Fifth Title, immediately dismissed him. But the feeling is that this is the classic example where the patch is worse than the hole. In fact, the center-right immediately went on the attack, pointing the finger at the Giallorossi government for the choice made. Giorgio Mulé, deputy of Power Italy: “After the injury the insult. The Conte government strikes again: the havoc made by the former commissioner for health in Calabria, Saverio Cotticelli, was not enough, discovered in his inefficiency only for a TV investigation, the new commissioner always wanted by Palazzo Chigi, Giuseppe Zuccatelli, is perhaps also worst“. The spokesman for the blue groups of the House and Senate underlined how the CDM was capable”to replace an incapable with a denier“. “To what extent do they want to continue to provoke the Calabrian citizens?“, you ask.
“Let Mattarella intervene”
Maurizio Gasparri echoed him, focusing attention on the fact that Zuccatelli would already be candidate in the Cesena college in the Senate for Liberi e equuali, the political movement to which the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza belongs: “So you do not choose a competent and super partes person, but one of your party, of whom, moreover, he shoots a video in which he would deny the usefulness of the masks with disconcerting statements about the virus“. The forced senator therefore asks the President of the Republic to intervene immediately”to protect the Calabria Region“.
On a rampage Matteo Salvini, who harshly pointed to the prime minister and the entire executive which in his opinion is made up of characters “incapable and dangerous“. The leader of the League does not tolerate that the new commissioner has been awarded only for his militancy on the left:”It’s official, Conte doesn’t love Calabria“. Wanda Ferro, deputy of Brothers of Italy: “Citizens’ health remains on the sidelines of decisions while the only goal is to keep Calabrian healthcare in a precarious condition, to justify the undue and unjustified subtraction of management from the regional government elected by the citizens“.
The defense of Zuccatelli
Meanwhile, Zuccatelli himself tries to defend himself: “My erroneous statements, improperly extrapolated from a private conversation, date back to the early period of the spread of the infection“. He then clings to the fact that the shocking phrases were said in the initial phase of the pandemic, specifying that now the knowledge of the Coronavirus allows us to have a clearer picture of the evolution and the ways of spreading:”The masks are part of the fundamental strategy to combat Covid-19. So, I invite everyone to use them, as well as to respect the physical distance“. It should not be forgotten that initially the international scientific community believed that the use of masks was to be reserved only for the infected and healthcare professionals:”The knowledge has been consolidated over the months, in accordance with the scientific studies conducted“.
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