Politica Lack of differentiated measures in the first stage of COVID 19 epidemic outbreak in Italy Angelo Boglione
During Spring 2020, the Italy government led by the PM Prof. Conte issued a considerable number of law decrees of “urgent nature”. Bypassing the parliament, due to extraordinary emergency given by the pandemic situation, the government tried to redesign the public life of the Italian state.
In a very quick escalation, fundamental rights, such as the possibility to assembly and to move freely, were suspended. One of the first policy mistakes was the non-differentiated measures that was applied along the peninsula. On ninth march of 2020, the entire nation was locked down in the so called “zona rossa”. There was no difference between the overcrowded, heavy industrialized and epicenter of pandemic Lombardy and the agricultural region of Molise. With no reasonable argument [2], at that time still “Covid free” regions, such as the island of Sardinia, were treated in the same manner as outbreak zones.
The mistake was aggravated by an incorrect framing delivered by the wrong terminology, especially insofar as the use of the words ‘quarantine’ and ‘lockdown’. The former, was interpreted by the Italian media as a necessitated measure to apply indiscriminately from the presence of an infection (or even the reasonable suspect of it). The theatrical way how the Govern proceeded to apply the “quarantena” went far beyond its actual literal meaning (i.e. a precautionary isolation of 40 days), - even in some regions showing no infections -, so that the entire related process lost its medical meaning, turning out to be a political fence. The latter term, ‘lockdown’ as is in the Italian info sphere, appeared to be a stereotyped umbrella term with no specific indication, that soon became an all-purpose “restriction”. Its content has been changeable and to be specified time by time, in accordance to the whirling pace of new decrees, changing nature and application of restrictions every time, never clear nor of immediate understanding.
[1]Deaths in Italy by underlying cause and region of occurrence, ISTAT
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