You Should Learn Italy Coronavirus Crisis’ Lessons Now
Italy granted itself a time the coronavirus does not grant. Now it can help other countries avoid the same missteps.
Time is scarce to assimilate the lessons learned about how to protect democratic and free societies when they are subtly hit in the form of a coronavirus (CV) epidemic.
Why did Italy overtake South Korea in the number of infections adding over 2470 cases over the last 24 hours against South Korea’s 84? Why does Italy have almost 27 times more victims than South Korea? Even allowing for under-reported cases and deaths, Italy still has close to double so many victims and shy of double so many cases than poorly equipped and embargoed Iran.
I suggest to begin by looking at how the crisis in China resonated with Italian citizens, how they behaved, and how authorities acted — not to give grades, but to draw useful conclusions.
See the quintessential Tuscan town and area from which I am writing, where cases were in the single digits. On Sunday, despite the freshly instituted #Istayathome national lock-down, in aperitivo bars people were mingling and not keeping at a distance. The after jumped.
When authorities imposed the lock-down on Lombardy four days ago, the many Lombards who own houses on the mountains or on the coast moved en masse. Sky resorts were crowded, sea walks swarming. The locals, for once, were angry, as were authorities — because people who are not in their home towns cannot refer to their family doctors and, if sick, will crowd the already bottle-necked ERs.
Why this behavior? Why did the calls by some to gauge the CV scenarios for Italy with what was happening in China, Singapore, Japan and South Korea fall on dead air?
Rewind some twenty plus days. Many Italians, economic leaders and a good part of even the quality press maintained for two weeks that cordoning Lombardy (a CV cluster region) was overdoing it and that only the elderly were at risk. They refused to limit their social, cultural and economic life because of “a flu”, such defined by a couple of Italian virologists.
Some personalities and even party leaders took pride at going about with their lives (now many tested positive, each causing the need for over 200 people to quarantine, and making the nation a test-bed for how efficient virtual administrations can be.)
The This is Italy, baby!” part created a perfect environment for CV to reproduce and thrive.
Despite the many Italians sticking to the rules, caring for others, volunteering, and giving to medical organizations — from fashion celebs to private organizations — on the front-line life has been dramatic.
Medical institutions are overstretched and on the brink of collapse. When 15 almost non-breathing patients come in at the same time, two doctors told a major TV channel, triaging is almost impossible, they can only start treating one or two. Relatives cannot see their love ones before they die or after. Over 691 medical personal are infected.
Critical CV patients from the North are being moved to other regions in turn overrunning their hospitals. Even brand new hospitals serving smaller cities, have only two or three sub-ICU (almost all now treating CV patients) and perhaps one or two ICU that they keep free, “say, for a heart attack”. All other patients requiring non-essential treatment are being sent home. Many disabled and their families are not getting the practical they need.
Inmates in prisons across the country staged revolts on CV fears. Dramatically, twelve died, with the damage amounting to over $37 million.
On Tuesday authorities imposed a loose national lock-down allowing people to go to work, shop for food or attend important matters (education facilities were already shuttered), all by abiding to social distancing criteria. A day later Italy was in hard lock-down “Wuhan style”.
How did Italy get here?
Firstly, at the beginning of the outbreak the narrative went that Italy had more cases because of intense testing. Authorities decided to stop testing those with no symptoms. Vice versa, South Korea’s CV diagnostic capability remained unmatched: could this explain South Korea’s shy of 10 times less victims?
A debate around why democracies cannot enforce quarantines with permanent surveillance or limit individual freedoms and cultural, sports and social life took front and center for over a week, using up much of the media and public debate time.
On top if that, a discussion arose at the institutional level around prerogatives between the central and the regional governments, consuming time and energy at the expense of scenarios outlining.
Italians granted themselves a time that the CV was not granting them, allowing for natural circumstances and miss-assessments to form a perfect (and very costly) storm.
Denial, surprise, acknowledgement, hesitant decision making and finally firm decision making seem natural and acceptable phases any democratic government and people will go through when facing a crisis. We now know that this is not good enough when the crisis is of viral nature — be that both, alas, biological and cyber — and that in democratic societies, like with patients, early treatment contributes to better outcomes.
Fellow countries, please tap on the experience, and begin creating a knowledge base for this kind of events.
The information in this article has been updated at 5.10 PM ET on Tuesday March 17, 2020.
