Italy’s Response to COVID-19

Abhishek Ranjan.

During the initial stage of the outbreak of this virus in Italy, unlike India or China the covid-19 cases in Italy spread like a tsunami which lead to numerous deaths. In the matter of the first week itself that is from February 21 to march 22, the first covid 19 case was discovered in Italy and within this week itself the cases started multiplying so rapidly that it led to the prohibition of all the movements of all the people in the territory as well as the closure of all non- essential business activities. During this very short period the number of cases increased rapidly such that it was the Italy’s biggest crisis since world war-2. During the first few days the politicians did not worry about the spread of the virus and they themselves met and shook hands during a meeting but the situations started getting worse when one of the politicians himself was tested positive with covid-19. Many such leniencies were there in some other countries as well. The politicians of Italy were asking the public to not to panic about the economy and that everything will be well manages but by the second week of this pendemic in Italy the number of people being tested positive of covid- 19 were only increasing.

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The systematic inability to listen to the experts highlights the trouble that leaders and people in general have figuring out how to act in dire, highly complex situations where there’s no easy solution. The desire to act causes leaders to rely on their gut feeling or the opinions of their inner circle. But in a time of uncertainty, it is essential to resist that temptation, and instead take the time to discover, organize, and absorb the partial knowledge that is dispersed across different pockets of expertise.A second lesson that can be drawn from the Italian experience is the importance of systematic approaches and the perils of partial solutions. The Italian government dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic by issuing a series of decrees that gradually increased restrictions within lockdown areas (“red zones”), which were then expanded until they ultimately applied to the entire country.In normal times, this approach would probably be considered prudent and perhaps even wise. In this situation, it backfired for two reasons. First, it was inconsistent with the rapid exponential spread of the virus. The “facts on the ground” at any point in time were simply not predictive of what the situation would be just a few days later. As a result, Italy followed the spread of the virus rather than prevented it. Second, the selective approach might have inadvertently facilitated the spread of the virus.

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Consider the decision to initially lock down some regions but not others. When the decree announcing the closing of northern Italy became public, it touched off a massive exodus to southern Italy, undoubtedly spreading the virus to regions where it had not been present.The government of Italy made mistakes from which rest of the western world should have learnt but it did not. According to the official data the number of deaths in Italy due to covid-19 are even more than that of China. Even though Italy’s population is as low that it is only equal to 4% of China’s total population even then the number of deaths in Italy are 28,884 and in China it is 4,643. Almost 2,11,000 people in Italy have been tested positive. Italy was one of the first European countries to get in the trap of this virus. Another major reason for the conditions in Italy to be much worse than any other country is that the population consists of many older people, the country has a very old population with a median age of 45 years. The coronavirus hits the elderly particularly hard, the reason behind this is that the metabolism of the elderly people is much slower than that of the younger people so to fight with such new virus their body was not prepared and could not fight against the illness. According to Italy’s superior health council the county’s median age of people who died from the virus is just short of 80 years old. In Italy there is also a system that different generations often spent time with each other under the same roof so that could also be one of the reason for such a rapid spread of the disease.
In Italy the northern region of Lombardy has been the hardest hit of corona virus. Out of all the registered cases in Italy nearly half of the cases are from this area and nearly two third of the total deaths are from this area. Lombardy accounts for 1/6th of Italy’s total population. This region was the country’s power house and and has strong relations with other countries like china, this may be another reason for such a rapid outbreak of the virus in this region specifically. The prime minister Giuseppe Conte said on TV at the end of January that the country was fully prepared to deal with the pendemic and that they have taken all the possible measures. As the first case emerged in Lombardy, many politicians said that people should continue with their lives like a normal situation but never had they imagined that the situation can intensify to this extent.
After the very first case the politicians of Italy did not take the situation very seriously and told the public to lead their lives in a normal way but as soon as more cases started to emerge the government initially started with asking the public to stay at their homes and shut down the non- essential item’s business then as the situations started worsening, the schools started shutting down in order to prevent children and teacher’s health, afterwards all the places for socializing such as parks, clubs, cafes etc. were shut down. On march 10th the nation was placed under a national lockdown. People were only allowed to go out of their houses if they have to buy any essential items that too only one person was allowed from one family and could only visit the store nearest to their houses. Italy was the first western country to enforce such tough measures in it’s country. After all these measured the number of covid-19 cases being tested positive in Italy were comparatively fewer in number and the ration of deaths also declined. As the government was still deciding wheather to keep the northern Italy in full lockdown or not, the information got leaked and people from north started to panic about the lockdown and started moving to the south which also contributed towards an increase in the number of cases in Italy. Other than these chaos among general public more than 400o healthcare workers in Italy has been tested positive of covid-19 which also says that due to improper kits to the healthcare workers the doctors are nurses are themselves a threat for increase of the corona cases in the country also, the doctors and nurses are themselves risking their lives so they should be provided with proper kits to treat the patients. Even after so many mishandling by the government Italy still deserves credit for the idea of imposing a nationwide lockdown due to which many other countries have also benefitted, but the country have to come up with another plan for long term purposes as the economy cannot be shut down for such a long time as it may lead to other crisis all over the country.

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The whole of Italy has been under a nationwide lockdown and it have to come up with a long-term plan to deal with this virus situation. If the economy remains closed for such a long time then the government will have a lot of burden as this lockdown in the nation for a longer duration will only take the economy down which will further lead to economic crisis these crisis can get as critical as people dying of hunger.Although Italy’s decision is considered very wise for now to keep the whole nation in a lockdown and it is also helping in dealing with the virus, but this virus has to end some day and even after that the life has to go on.