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There is no more time to complain; to complain about what has not been done and what could have been done (although there would be a thousand reasons to do so). There is not even more time to postpone; kicking the can some more in the hopes that it won’t upset many and that somehow things will fix themselves. This is the decisive week for the future of our country: either a strong and courageous decision is made, or Italy will never be what it was before.
The die is cast. Because the numbers we see today are the result of Covid-19 infections two weeks ago. This means that what we do, or do not do, today we will see in the number of positives, hospitalized, dead in two weeks.
And if growth continues like this (and there’s very little reason to believe it won’t) in November, the result will be dramatic; in disastrous December. But perhaps it will not be fatal, if we now implement the only solution capable of saving, as far as possible, our economy and our health: a generational blockage.
The mean age of death and of SARS-CoV-2 positive patients is 80 years and has remained stable since the beginning of the outbreak. Of the 36,806 who died, only 412 were under 50 years of age (1.1%); including those in their fifties, it reaches 4.6%. Incredibly, there is no data on the average age of those admitted to intensive care: in Lombardy in the spring there was talk of an average of 63 years, although it has probably now dropped a bit. However, positive and infected are fairly evenly distributed by age, even if the vast majority are asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic.
Does it mean that only sick elderly die? No. Does it mean that young people are contagious? No. It means that we are all infecting, but whoever dies or comes out with broken bones is almost always elderly or in poor health.
In Italy, the unemployment rate between 15 and 24 years is 32.1%, and between 25 and 34 it is 15.6% (if you can read these numbers, they do not say exactly what they seem, but they continue being significant). With the freezing of layoffs that protected stable contracts and sacrificed precarious ones, the change in the trend of unemployment among young people between 15 and 34 years old observed in the last year is -5.9%. Young people are paying the most for the Covid crisis. And this adds to an endemic problem of inactivity, poverty, precariousness, uncertainty and little political representation.
These are the numbers, and they only say one thing, as unpleasant as it may be: a generational lockdown is the only solution to save the goat and cabbage, the economy and health, as far as possible. Elderly and weak at home or in a hotel, quarantined or working remotely if they can; the others to work, obviously with all the precautions of social distancing already in place and a continuous strengthening of the health facilities. Someone has also calculated it: it is the best solution, and for our country it could be a unique opportunity to update and relaunch. The president of the Liguria region, Giovanni Toti, also relaunched the idea today.
Of course, young people would continue to infect and infect, even at home: but if they were constantly monitored at work and school, perhaps they could quickly isolate themselves, for example, in hotels, stopping root outbreaks. And maybe they could be given a bonus to encourage them to get out of the house (we put 110% to renovate the rentiers’ houses – can’t we find a few billions for a year of free rent for young people? At the same time, we could think of holiday bonuses for the elderly who live with young people, in order to support the tourism sector a little in a Christmas that promises to be dramatic.
You could say that it is too much – too risky a move, difficult to implement, too late – and you would be perfectly right. But the question is: what are the alternatives? We can expect yesterday’s measurements to flatten the curve a bit, but in any case we will have to maintain them through a very long autumn and part of winter. In this scenario, those with incomes will survive quite well, but the precarious and the entrepreneurs will suffer a fatal blow, and this would only lead to very strong social conflicts, growing social inequality and a permanently blocked country. And in any case without excluding the prospect of a new generalized blockade.
One might also wonder why no other country has considered a “registry lock”. Probably for two reasons: first, because in other places there is confidence that the economy will continue (or in any case it is already in disaster); second, because it would be a divisive measure, very unpopular, politically very risky, since it affects a growing segment and especially voters of the population. But the case of Italy could be different. First, because it has everything to lose: it is unlikely that our economy will not withstand another generalized blockade; second, because paradoxically the political situation is much more favorable.
Yes, because with the reduction of parliamentarians, without a new electoral law on the horizon, the pandemic underway and the white semester at the door, the elections are practically out of the question. And there are no other majorities in Parliament: also because no one has the desire to take the initiative at this time. Conte is in an iron barrel, and the parties, though reluctant to take on this political responsibility, could not help but support him. Only Conte has the political viability and residual popularity necessary to digest such an arrangement.
But why should the prime minister take this risk? Because the risk of not doing it is enormously higher. The most likely alternative scenario, in fact, is that at some point you will still have to make drastic and highly unpopular decisions, which will only fuel discontent and multiply popular anger, which is already spreading and taking hold among the young and the excluded. . At the beginning of 2021 we could have a government in the strong, blocked and without any credibility, while the country burns abroad.
President Conte takes courage in both hands and imposes a total change of course with the next -the last- DPCM: it does not act on sectors but on age. The country will gain credibility immediately (which is not a small thing given our public debt), and perhaps in the long run it could also represent a moment of reactivation and turning point for our country. In fact, Giuseppe Conte could be remembered in the future as a hero of the fatherland (this is the power of circumstances).
There is no more time to complain. There is no more time to postpone. Next Sunday is All Saints’ Day. The following Monday “The Day of the Dead.” We have a week to decide which of the two days will be more representative of the near future of the country.
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