Italy and the Virus

After a stumbling start, the country has gone from being a global pariah to a model — however imperfect — of viral containment that holds lessons for its neighbors and for the United States.
A market in Naples, Italy, on June 19. Italians are cautiously optimistic that they have the virus in check — even as national health experts warn that complacency remains the jet fuel of the pandemic.
Credit...
Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times

By Jason Horowitz 

Jason Horowitz

Extract:

"ROME — When the coronavirus erupted in the West, Italy was the nightmarish epicenter, a place to avoid at all costs and a shorthand in the United States and much of Europe for uncontrolled contagion.

'You look at what’s going on with Italy,' President Trump told reporters on March 17. 'We don’t want to be in a position like that.' Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, used Italy’s overwhelmed hospitals as evidence for his opposition to Medicare for All at a presidential debate. 'It is not working in Italy right now, 'he said.

Fast forward a few months, and the United States has suffered tens of thousands more deaths than any country in the world. European states that once looked smugly at Italy are facing new flare-ups. Some are imposing fresh restrictions and weighing whether to lock down again. ...

[Italian] hospitals are basically empty of Covid-19 patients. Daily deaths attributed to the virus in Lombardy, the northern region that bore the brunt of the pandemic, hover around zero. The number of new daily cases has plummeted to 'one of the lowest in Europe and the world,' said Giovanni Rezza, director of the infective illness department at the National Institute of Health. 'We have been very prudent.'

And lucky. Today, despite a tiny uptick in cases this week, Italians are cautiously optimistic that they have the virus in check — even as Italy’s leading health experts warn that complacency remains the jet fuel of the pandemic. They are aware that the picture can change at any moment." 

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