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Not everything started from Codogno. It did not explode in late February. And who knows if the “red zones” would have changed the course of events. The story ofepidemic of the coronavirus in Italy is yet to be written, and many chapters remain obscure. But what is now clear is that the convictions so far rooted, both in the course of the infection and in the places affected by the coronavirus, will probably be reviewed. If we trust the official data reported by Civil Protection, the history ofepidemic The Italian seems to have a start date (February 20) and a specific location (Codogno). It is the chronicle that we all know and that we have observed every day after the direct (useless) reports of Commissioner Angelo Borrelli. However, there is a prequel darkness that forces us to look back.
In the study titled “The early phase of the Covid-19 outbreak in Lombardy, Italy,” a group of scientists studied the “first 5,830 laboratory-confirmed cases” in Lombardy and found that “the epidemic in Italy started much earlier.” February 20, 2020. “” At the time of the detection of the first case of Covid-19, we read, the epidemic had already spread to most municipalities in southern Lombardy. “Analysts have asked people with a positive swab and coronavirus trying to remember when the first symptoms arose and the results are surprising. It wasn’t just the epidemic “in progress before identifying the patient 1“But even the first coronavius case is on January 1, 2020, a month and a half before the Codogno outbreak. Without a doubt, serological tests these days are moving the hand even to the last decade of last year. What is certain, however, is that between January 24 and early February in Italy, more and more consistent numbers of people with Covid-19 symptoms appeared. So much so that, when Italy discovered the case in the Lodi area on February 20, around 1,200 people were already suffering from all the symptoms of infection of coronavirus.
It is from here that we must begin to evaluate the government elections in those first dramatic days and understand if the different emergency shutdown They were punctual or not. The first decision is to arm ten municipalities in the Lodi area (Bertonico, Casalpusterlengo, Castelgerundo, Castiglione d’Adda, Codogno, Fombio, Maleo, San Fiorano, Somaglia and Terranova dei Passerini) and Vo ‘Euganeo in Veneto. The hope is to contain the infection and limit the infections, but within a few hours it begins to seem obvious that more needs to be done. “We were clear that the problem was spreading even beyond Codogno – says a source in the task force Lombard – and in the technical field we had made many hypotheses about how to act. “At first, as the Giornale.it able to rebuild, believed to enlarge red areas in Lodi area. “We had thought to include all the municipalities that had had at least two cases, then the neighbors, to create a slightly wider crown. However, this hypothesis was discarded when investigations in patient 1 showed that the infection was now spread and the first cases started to emerge in Bergamo“At that time, epidemiologists still do not know, but in Val Seriana, Cremona and Piacenza the infections had already multiplied for days. Without anyone noticing.
Academics will understand this only several weeks later, when analyzes show that Codogno is not even the starting point of the tragedy. Going backwards, the task force Lombard discovered that the first signs ofepidemic two municipalities of 20 thousand 3 thousand inhabitants have arisen in Arese and Conegliano Laudense. And only later would the infection spread to the Lodigiano (January 24), Bergamo, and Cremona (January 31) areas. “If the outbreak had been Codogno, says the source, I think we could have blocked it. Instead, something that is clear to us now, but in those days was slightly less, is that our speed of infection chain analysis was insufficient compared to that of virus“
What many wonder is why, once it was determined that the infection had escaped from the Citadel of Lodi, it was not decided to close the other most affected areas (Bergamo, Val Seriana or Brescia) as soon as they “ignited” as new outbreaks. The sequence of events is now known: the Lombardy he asks Rome to establish new red zones, the government asks for light from the scientific technical committee and then he stays. March 2, as revealed by ICTYThe Istituto Superiore di Sanità advises Conte to extend the blockade to the municipalities of Bergamo de Alzano Lombardo and Nembro and to the municipalities of Brescia de Orzinuovi. But Palazzo Chigi It does not move. Why? Hard to say. They are convulsive hours. Epidemiologists also surf on sight. What is certain is that the decision had to be made immediately. So much so that after a few days of waiting (between February 27 and March 8), experts begin to understand that it is too late and that the only solution is to close all of Lombardy. “When the minister of hope arrived in Milan (on March 4, ed), the mouth of the task report already indicated that the red areas probably no longer made sense and that everything had to be stopped now. “Four days later, the Dpcm will come and close all of Lombardy and 14 other northern provinces.
The hesitation of those two weeks had harmful effects, allowing the virus to infiltrate the trains full of passengers, in the emergency rooms of hospitals full of patients in respiratory crisis convinced of having a “banal flu”, in offices and residences for the elderly. “In the red areas, says the task force source, I think that even if we did, I don’t think we would have gotten any results out of containing the infection. But it surely would have allowed us to put those outbreaks a little quicker, as it did with Codogno. Perhaps if my colleagues and I had been more convincing, perhaps we would have anticipated the government’s decision in just 3 or 4 days and perhaps we would have limited the damage. “
