Aspirin awaiting horse care. The Council of Ministers launches a package of measures aimed at the common outbreaks of Coronavirus, but for more substantial interventions, those concerning the economy and businesses in difficulty, we will have to wait for next week. While Saturday morning the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte together with the Civil Protection will speak in conference call with the governors of the Regions most affected by the Coronavirus emergency to launch a new measure and decide whether to ease the current tightening.
We must decide on the reopening of schools, kindergartens and universities, stadiums and museums. In the Government, prudence reigns: contagions continue to grow and reopening at this moment is an extremely delicate decision. Regions are divided. Lombardy pushes for another week of closure, asks for an extension of the restrictive measures, with the expert infectious disease specialist of the Sacco hospital in Milan, Massimo Galli, who speaks of “a bitter medicine, but which must be swallowed” to be able to “Go from 2-2.5 cases for each infected person to less than one”. Veneto has a different view, which would like to limit the restriction to the red areas only, those where the Covid-19 infections were registered, for a return to normal in other areas. Emilia also awaits the government’s decision. Meanwhile, ministers opted to include a “save school year” rule in the decree approved this evening so as to avoid that students lose the year if the closure of the institutes continues. Signal that lets you imagine how the Coronavirus, in some areas, despite the calls for calm, is still scary.
It is therefore probable that targeted ordinances will be reached concerning the three areas in which Italy was divided: one for the most affected regions, another for those with more limited infections and finally a third for those not reached by the virus. For this reason, a division into three colors of the areas of contagion should be prepared, grading the level of contagion and the measures to be implemented in different cases. In some cases – such as in Palermo and in Trentino Alto Adige – it has already been decided for the reopening of the schools. But it is the situation on the territory that imposes different choices. Because the numbers say that out of 821 sick (half in home isolation, 345 in hospital with symptoms and 64 in intensive care), 474 are in Lombardy, where there are also 8,500 people in home isolation because they have come into contact with infected subjects, 149 are in Veneto, almost all in the province of Padua and Venice, and 143 in Emilia Romagna, most in the province of Piacenza.
So it is clear that for these territories different measures will be needed compared to those that will be taken, for example, for Tuscany, where there are 7 cases, for Marche (6) or for Umbria, where the first two cases are recorded, not yet validated by ISS. Like the new case of the woman who tested positive at the first joint test in Fiumicino, returning from Bergamo. And that Lombardy is the epicenter of the virus, as demonstrated by the emergency – which then returned according to what was said by Commissioner Borrelli – which occurred in the hospital of Lodi, where 51 serious patients were hospitalized, all from the red area of which 17 in intensive care. Given the shortage of places, they have been transferred to other Lombard hospitals.
The government is looking for a solution to revive the economy. The decree dismissed late in the evening provides, among other things, for all payments to be stopped in the red zone and a monthly allowance of 500 euros for a maximum of three months for self-employed workers who carry out their activity in the municipalities of the red zone. , or are resident or domiciled in the ten villages of the Lodi area or in Vo ‘Euganeo. The withholding of contributions and withholding taxes for the tourism and hotel sector throughout Italy is also envisaged. Vouchers to allow tourist agencies to refund cancellations for both hotels and flights.
This is only a first intervention, which will not be enough to restart the country, whose economic damage is already evident: -65% for clothing and catering, -40% for furniture and other sectors, Piazza Affari which also closed today in the negative, marking a -11% in a week. For this reason, the Minister of Economy Gualtieri, before the meeting, stressed that it is necessary to find a “balance line, modulating more precisely” the restrictive measures in place and promised that “we will allocate adequate resources”. The country must addressing the emergency “with determination, unity, seriousness and even trust”, Gualtieri underlines, replying to those who, like Matteo Salvini, ask for a stop to tax records for the whole country: “it is neither a wise nor a useful idea”. The measure is criticized by the opposition, from Forza Italia to Salvini himself who speaks of “crumbs”.
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