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Cesare Emendatori is the man who is said to have brought the new coronavirus to Romania. He is an Italian married to a Romanian woman and is considered, in our country, “patient zero”. COVID-19 turned his life into hell. Not the disease itself, but everything that happened to him and his family in Romania and Italy. Everywhere, some people around him considered him guilty. Those in Romania told him that he brought the virus from Italy here, and those in Italy that he brought it from Romania.
“On the border with the Marches, an unusual outbreak in Rimini is believed to be related to those in Lombardy and it is possible that everything has come out of this pizzeria. The owner, 71, was positively diagnosed and would have traveled extensively in the late February, “the Italian press reported on him.
The man also traveled to Romania, where he remained for three days. Cesare Emendatori is the Italian of whom the authorities of our country said that he infected the first Romanian.
“After tests carried out in Gorj of people who came into contact with the Italian citizen of Rimini, we have the first confirmed case of COVID-19 infection in Romania,” former Health Minister Victor Costache announced on February 26.
There were reports that he had been hunting and that he had met many people from Gorj and Dolj counties. Cesare says that much of the information was not true.
Journalist: So, zero patients from Romania, patient 1 from Rimini. How did you receive this news?
Cesare Amendatori: From here or from Romania?
Reporter: Both. How was it?
Cesare Amendatori: Bad. Because they spoke badly. I couldn’t do it well. I did not infect anyone. Not in Romania, not here. I arrived there on Tuesday night to Craiova, by plane. I went straight home, I had a fever there, but I took a tachypyrine (no acetaminophen) and in the morning I had no fever. I went to the city hall to pay the taxes. I took out money, paid taxes and went home. Then I had a fever again.
Neither Cesare nor his doctor suspected that, although he had symptoms, he could be infected with the new coronavirus. The epidemic was still in its infancy.
Cesare Amendatori: I have felt this way for a long time, tired. According to me, I had this virus for 20 days. That is what I think now, today. If I knew I had it, I would not have gone to Romania. Not even in Italy, I was staying there. These were the first symptoms. Here they talked about me and said that I came from Romania and that I brought the virus here.
In Romania they even said that I arrived in Craiova, that I stayed there for a day and a half with a mistress and then I stayed another day and a half in Târgu Jiu, with another mistress. And I was with my son, you know, like I was with my lover? I was with this friend and my son. I was at home, I also have an apartment in Târgu Jiu. I explained what I did, I went to pay the taxes. It had been a long time and I told him to do a jump, three days and a good night. I didn’t know I would have a fever there in Romania. When the doctor gave me the medicine, he told me it was nothing, that he had a cold, that he had to take the pills and that the next day it happened. No one was aware of this disease. When I came back and had a checkup, the doctor sent me to have a lung x-ray.
After the X-ray and test performed in Italy, after finishing his trip to Romania, Emendatori discovered that he was infected with the new coronavirus, so he became Patient 0 in Romania and Patient 1 in Rimini.
The first infected patient in Romania was a 24-year-old man from Gorj. Cesare Amendatori was reportedly at the factory where he worked, but they did not come into direct contact. It is alleged that he took the virus from a surface touched by the Italian businessman. The first patient was asymptomatic and was treated with soup at the Matei Balş Institute in the Capital.
Cesare and his wife’s life has changed completely since he was diagnosed with SARS-CoV 2. He was hospitalized in Italy to receive the treatment he needed.
Reporter: How was the hospital? It wasn’t a serious form of COVIDD-19, was it?
Cesare Amendatori: I was not intubated, I was breathing alone. I think when I got to the hospital, the virus was already passing. This client of mine, who is also a friend of mine, was not examined. He stayed home for ten days with a fever and the doctor gave him acetaminophen. One Saturday night he felt very ill and his wife took him to the hospital. That’s where they found your pneumonia. They treated him and sent him home. Three days later, he infected his wife, children, and mother. He was 84 years old.
Guess where the virus could have come from.
Cesare Amendatori: In Italy, when I arrived, I went to the hospital. And here too, they controlled all the employees, nobody had the virus. Only a musician had it. We think we got the virus when it was the fair in Rimini, we had a lot of Chinese customers, from Milan, from Portugal. He had karaoke, he sang, we think I took it from the microphones. Suppose. Not known.
Cesare Emendatori’s family was not infected. He stayed home and tried to help him as best he could, but no one was allowed to leave the house. They also closed their business, a restaurant in Rimini, and silently endured all the charges brought against them.
Cesare Amendatori: In Romania I was a criminal and a virus carrier, in Italy I had become an infected person who brought the virus from Romania. You didn’t even know what to do …
Journalist: Why do you think people reacted like this?
Cesare Amendatori: Because they were the first cases. It was not even known then how to contract the virus. After that happened, I went to the hospital on February 24. On the 22nd I returned from Romania. I left there on February 18, returned on the 22, but after leaving the hospital, I saw how the situation is evolving. In Milan they died constantly. It was then that I thought it was world class.
Alina Volintiru, Cesare Emendatori’s wife: I asked many friends who were close to me for help, nobody really came to help me because they were … they were afraid. I just asked them to do my shopping, they didn’t show up because they were scared. When I went out and spread my clothes, everyone told me to come into the house and no one should pass in front of my house, because they could get the virus. I was very angry. I cried and stayed at home, my husband in the hospital, I suffered a lot, I was alone.
I received messages from Romanians writing to me: Thank you for bringing us the coronavirus in Romania, as if it had been caused by our family.
After recovering from his illness, Cesare tries to revive his business. In the restaurant he owns, he occasionally cooks Romanian food for the Romanians there.
Cesare Amendatori: Romanian food, if my wife is Romanian, we do it sometimes. We also have many Romanian clients that come here, so sometimes we do sarmale. But our specialty is Romagna cuisine. Pasta, fish, meat.
Journalist: How many employees did you have?
Cesare Amendatori: Before the virus we had 6, 7. Now we restart with 3.
Despite all the suffering caused by people’s illness and evil, Cesare Emendatori remains optimistic.
Cesare Amendatori: In Romania, the crisis was not very high. I also listen, I am in contact. They have to be careful, but I think they will be released before us. It is global, you cannot say how to do it. You have to be careful, that’s all. But I don’t think there is any problem. When they find treatment, they will return to normal. Years will pass. You suffer less than Italy and Europe.
Italy has been seriously affected and is no longer recovering from tourism. The beaches that would have been full are empty today, and with each sun and day that passes, people’s hopes are rising. However, experts say that only in 2022 things can return to normal.
