Justice in the northern Italian city of Bergamo has started an investigation into former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. It is being investigated whether Conte acted negligently when Bergamo became the first Italian city to deal with the corona virus in 2020.
The research focuses on the initial phase of the corona pandemic. At the end of February 2020, the first corona infections on European soil were detected in the Northern Italian region of Lombardy, where Bergamo is located. That was the start of the pandemic in Europe, which would hit the Lombardy region hard.
Conte was Prime Minister of Italy at the time and has been accused of not taking action quickly enough. Thousands of deaths could have been prevented with better precautions and faster intervention, says the judiciary.
Corona patients would have died because so-called red zones were not set in time. These are heavily affected areas where people are not allowed to enter or leave. The seriousness of the pandemic was insufficiently recognized and that had dramatic consequences. Ultimately, 188,000 people died in Italy from the effects of the virus.
Legal action is also being taken against eighteen other politicians and top officials. These include former health minister Roberto Speranza and the leader of the Lombardy region.
Conte, now leader of the opposition, says he acted with the greatest commitment and sense of responsibility “in one of the most difficult moments Italy has ever experienced”.