So they said. A mantra that, just like a virus, has infected everyone's brains: senior officials, parliamentarians, but also professionals such as virologists and doctors in general. This and other fake news started circulating - and continue to do so - fairly quickly. Some ideas, true or false, right or wrong, are so contagious that they cannot help but unleash a cultural epidemic parallel to the biological one. When a fertile idea is planted in a mind, the brain is literally parasitized into a vehicle for its propagation, just like a virus goes to conquer a cell. And it's not just a saying: an idea is physically realized through the synaptic structures of the nervous system, and when it's unhealthy, just like this one, it provides a superficial answer to complex problems. Indeed, "it's just a flu" has led to delayed lockdowns and health crises in many countries.
When the virus took root and brought the country to its knees, it became clearer that the related disease seemed - but wasn't - a simple flu. The symptoms would also be similar, but for the new coronavirus there is no vaccine: it can cause a respiratory syndrome for which there are no specific drugs and lead a patient to be attached to a respirator. All this can only undermine a National Health System, with three elements above all: rapidity of the infection, number of patients occupying hospital rooms at the same time and long stays of the latter in intensive care units.
The containment strategy, applied in China, Italy and subsequently in other countries, is based on a very simple concept, namely that of spreading the infection over time with the aim of reducing its impact on health and consequently the mortality rate. . : the more the contagion is saturated the hospitals, the more many serious patients would be left to their sad fate. But let's take a step back: the virus arrives in Italy perhaps from Germany, or perhaps not, but in any case it arrives and does so in the most striking way possible, putting a 38-year-old young man in intensive care and infecting the area of the municipality of Lodigiani in a few days. The first real Italian outbreak is represented by the municipality of Codogno and a dozen municipalities around which it is called the Red Zone; a few days later it will be extended to all of Lombardy and the most productive part of the country will begin an inexorable decline. Piedmont, Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Marche become areas where it is difficult to move if not for proven reasons of work or necessity. Schools, universities, theaters, cinemas, concerts, museums, sports, even churches, any event involving medium or large gatherings is closed and categorically prohibited. Little by little the shutters are lowered and the streets of Italy are empty. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte officially puts the country on lockdown on 11 March. There comes a radical change in our habits and as if catapulted into a dystopian reality even a sneeze could cost a murder charge.
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Lockdown - In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic isolates the world to build a new one.
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