(by John Blackeye) "After the storm, please, Government at home." Almost two months have passed since Italy entered the height of the emergency. The epidemic will pass as all epidemics in history have passed but to date we are counting two hundred deaths a day and we hope that the number tends to decrease and not to increase. Unfortunately the superficiality with which it was addressed by Government the emergency can only remain among the main chapters with which the pages of the dramatic history of Italy are being written these days. Dark pages. Masks for all would have been national salvation. It doesn't take a medical degree to claim it. If we had all worn the masks since the early days, the contagion would have been curbed if not even reset. It is logical. Those who were infected, ill or did not know that they were positive for the virus, with a mask, would not have spread the virus that is transmitted with saliva, that is, with sneezing, coughing and physical contact. Who is healthy or was healthy, using the mask he would have defended himself from contagion. But of course. Italy discovered without masks and dramatically discovered without a real production capacity that we passed on to China, Romania and India - to speculate economically on production costs and allow entrepreneurs to earn more at the expense of national occupation.
At the same time, in these days, we have discovered that we have deprived ourselves of technology, machinery and expertise that could have allowed us to produce the masks in Italy. Result. Many entrepreneurs will also have enriched themselves by relocating industrial production, but in addition to unemployment, we now also pay for these dramatic consequences. For these reasons, in full emergency, politicians and doctors rushed to appear on television to advise against the use of masks, highlighting that they were only used by the infected, doctors and nurses. Well, actually bad.
Established that the truth corresponds to the opposite of what the Italian politicians have said and are repeating, at a certain point we found ourselves in an emergency within an emergency. The masks are really useful. How to do? Hearing the Head of Civil Protection, the initiative pursued was to ask for its procurement abroad but it is clear that nations such as Romania, India, China, Germany and France, in the face of a global pandemic, think about their people they block exports. This is the concept expressed by the Head of Civil Protection in his last press conference last night. It seems to see the government team in a confused state. Indeed it seems that the government only follows the indications of economists, trying to raise billions from Europe, delegating the management of the emergency completely to a Department of Civil Protection that does not have the structure and strength to deal with such big problems.
But one wonders: Italy, which is among the seven most industrialized countries in the world, really has difficulty in nationalizing for a couple of months the only factory that produces masks on our territory and churning out millions of health devices to be sent free of charge to everyone the prefects and mayors of our nation?
But should we citizens think about these solutions? But what are overpaid state officials doing these days? Where are the Directors?
Two months after the start of the emergency we are still following the cursed bureaucratic road of procurement and purchases abroad to supply masks that no one will supply us. But does it take long to convert factories and private companies into structures capable of producing millions of masks? The epidemic will pass. If the Italians manage to remain closed at home, they will reach a peak and then the parable of the infection will go down until it disappears. Is the story. But what price will Italy have paid? Those in government have a duty to make even drastic decisions - without being afraid of the political setbacks they would cause I risk the armchairs and without being afraid of that damned jurisdictional litigation that in our nation hangs like a sword of Damocles on anyone who wants to take an initiative.
If you can sue a government minister for stopping a foreign ship full of illegal immigrants, it is clear that one is afraid of taking every step in any direction. Even in these days we continue to hear about billions of euros arriving but at the moment we need to stop the epidemic and this can be done with decrees but also with concrete initiatives: start the internal production of the templates. You don't need the money to stop the infection, the money will be needed to start again.
Mask scandal in Lombardy
Two hundred thousand masks send in Lombardia laid down by the National civil protection and already distributed in hospitals have been withdrawn because not approved and deemed unsuitable to protect health workers who fight on the front Coronavirus, in the wards of hospitals that hospitalize more than five thousand patients Covid-19, 650 in intensive care and 4.435 in the ward.
According to what Qn learns from one qualified health source, the stock of 200 thousand masks, already distributed in the Lombard hospitals, would have been the subject of discussion, during the videoconference of the directors of the social-health companies and of the Lombardy IRCCS to take stock of the Covid-19 emergency. Some directors raised the issue, others noted that the devices lacked the CE mark and someone submitted the material to their company prevention and protection manager, who ruled out being able to use it to protect healthcare professionals from Coronavirus. It is true that, in the Prime Ministerial Decree of 3 March, the Government had implemented the WHO indications and cleared the 4-ply surgical masks for health workers and even those "without the CE mark after evaluation by the Superior Institute of Health".
But the material that the Lombards found in their hands when they opened the Civil Protection packs did not have the appearance of a mask as much as a well-known dust cloth, with two holes on the sides in which to insert the ears «doing well adhere »the nose and mouth protection, reads on the packaging. And the promise printed on the 50-piece envelope ("Filter bacteria") was not considered sufficient by the health authorities, who therefore decided to withdraw a batch of 200 thousand masks despite the shortage of personal protective equipment in Lombardy hospitals: "Some finished the Ffp3 two days ago, others had only enough principals until yesterday evening," explains our source.
In Lombardy, he explained days ago the regional councilor for the budget, «They serve now 150 thousand masks per day to protect all hospital staff and general practitioners in the area: how many health facilities consumed in a year before the emergency ". State supplies have already been the subject of controversy ("Up to now we have received more masks as a donation than from the Civil Protection", said the same councilor Davide Caparini on Tuesday).