Genoa, one of the Italian playgrounds of the super-rich is a city of lap dog lovers. There is no shortage of dogs, or dog turds. But there does seem to be a shortage of poop bags and it was not uncommon on my morning run along the Corso Italia this week to see a face-masked dog walker allowing his dog to leave another infectious deposit of poo, walk away and leave it steaming in the middle of the promenade.
I have just returned from Italy where the proclaimed lifting of Covid restrictions refers only to the paperwork associated with entering and leaving the country. Masks are still very much in evidence and a great deal of this is self-imposed. If not actually wearing a mask, nearly everyone has a mask around their wrist, like a talisman of which they just cannot let go. Normality will only ever be regained when the metaphorical masks are lifted from the minds of the Italian people.
My regular visits to Italy have allowed me to observe over time the reaction of the country to the emergence of the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Italy was quick off the mark in the early days of the global panic and, indeed, amongst the first to panic. I returned to the U.K. from Wuhan late in 2019 to discover I had left an epidemic behind me. While we only began hearing about the coronavirus early in 2020 it had already been making its way through the sick and vulnerable in Wuhan since at least November 2019, certainly coinciding with my five weeks in the city in November and December 2019. I had travelled on crowded trains and taxis, eaten in crowded restaurants and taught in packed lecture rooms with impunity. My initial reaction, and one which has not attenuated, was that this was just another virus, it would kill a few old folks like me and some of the more clinically vulnerable amongst us and leave the vast majority alive and unscathed. And that is exactly what happened.
I made a very quick visit to Vienna after returning from China where our train from the main station into Slovenia was cancelled because someone on the train – which came from Italy – apparently had ‘the virus’. The ultimate reaction in Vienna is well documented. A week later, in February 2020, I visited Italy where I had my temperature checked – Far East style – on arrival. By the time I returned to the U.K. at the end of that week, Italy had all but ground to a halt. The mainstream media in the U.K. were tripping over themselves to transmit gruesome scenes from hospitals and to report what seemed like alarming figures for COVID-19 (it now had a name) infections and deaths. Italy stopped all but essential health care, closed roads and restaurants and made people work from home. Essentially, devoid of any ideas of their own, the Italians followed the Chinese measures they saw taking place in Wuhan. How we in the U.K. laughed… until March 23rd 2020.
Whether deliberate or not, the scenes from Italy were really the beginning of ‘project fear’ in the U.K. If our public health officials were thinking of recommending to the Government measures akin to the lockdown in China or felt that they were not taking the prospect of a pandemic seriously then this was just the picture they needed to convince them. Indeed, they did convince them with Neil Ferguson then of SAGE claiming they never thought they would get away with it.
Nobody in the mainstream media tried to contextualise what was being reported from Italy. Pictures of busy hospitals, especially ICU units, make great TV. ICU units are normally busy. However, it adds to the drama if people are in full PPE which helps to ramp up the fear factor. But Italian hospitals are always crowded. Italy is a heavily medicalised society and one where people expect themselves and their relatives to be treated in hospital. This is exemplified by comparing Italian healthcare with U.K. healthcare. We have comparable populations in terms of size (60 million for Italy; 68.5 million for U.K.), a comparable number of hospital beds (187 thousand for Italy; 162 thousand for U.K.) and yet in Italy in 2019 there are a staggering 58.6 million annual hospital admissions compared with approximately 6 million in the U.K. Against this background, the pressure on doctors to admit patients to hospital is immense. Also, presumably, there is pressure to admit people to ICU if that is considered to be the appropriate treatment and when you have more ICU beds (3.1 per thousand people compared with 2.4 in the U.K.) you will tend to fill them.
Late in 2021, I was able to return to Italy as I was then considered fully vaccinated and this visit was reported in the Daily Sceptic passim. However, I had to postpone an April visit to May as I am no longer considered fully vaccinated. To enter Italy now if you are unvaccinated or cannot prove recovery from Covid you need a negative lateral flow test within 48 hours prior to entering Italy. I duly crossed the Humber Bridge from Hull to Humberside airport one morning to have the test and then travelled to Heathrow. Two cancelled and rescheduled BA flights later I arrived in Italy to breeze in without ever being asked to produce the test certificate. Masks were enforced on the flight to Milan but not reinforced in Club Class once the curtain was drawn behind us.
Masks remain mandatory on public transport and the driver of the bus from Milano Linate airport to Milano Centrale station gave me that horrid gesture with the cupped hand over the mouth and nose indicating I needed to wear a mask on the bus. I complied politely but as soon as his back was turned, I removed it. I noted another passenger studying me carefully and expected a confrontation. Instead, he removed his. Small victories. I even removed my mask on the train on the way to Genoa as I saw another passenger had removed his. Nobody challenged me. The travel regulations specify FFP2 grade masks, but people were wearing a range of face coverings, and nobody was challenged.
There was trouble when I went to Mass that evening. I got ‘the gesture’ from one of the pass keepers about my maskless face. He did not speak English, so he got someone who did. I told him it was not compulsory, and he went away. I found out later that, in fact, it was compulsory as this was considered a public gathering. While we were few, I was not the only maskless person at Mass, but I was the only one challenged.
Face masks are not required at places of work, except in hospitals which also require the ‘Super Green Pass’ for entry. Nevertheless, the University of Genoa where I was working is insisting that staff and students wear face masks at all times. I did not comply, and nobody complained but I was astonished at the level of compliance – essentially 100% – among colleagues and students. Not a single colleague had ever challenged the Covid narrative, and one claimed to have absolutely no idea what had been taking place in Australia and New Zealand. Disappointingly, he seemed impressed rather than horrified. Trying to elicit views on the pandemic measures was like trying to draw teeth, which is the perfect analogy. People literally winced at the news that face masks were not effective or that there was no evidence for the efficacy of the whole range of non-pharmacological interventions. Faith in the vaccines, their efficacy and safety, is absolute.
It is obvious that a combination of Covid catastrophising and the pandemic measures have hit the Italian psyche hard. They are very willing, almost enthusiastic at playing up how badly they think Italy was hit by Covid and to play down any suggestion that the reaction was disproportionate and probably unnecessary. Covid-related conversations inevitably start: “In Italy…” rather than on the nature of the virus or the need for any of the restrictions. Whatever the Italian Government has told them, they accept. There is no reference to other countries, so I did not even bother to point out how well Sweden had coped.
Italy seems to have lived in a coronavirus bubble of its own making for the past two years. This seems like an incredible achievement, given the availability of both mainstream and social media. Of course, there have been significant protests against the restrictions but, in keeping with all of the above, these have been effectively played down and nobody I spoke to was aware of their scale. Trying to move people on to that territory simply elicited a sentence that started: “In Genoa…”. Of course, I was moving in entirely the wrong circles among academics and postgraduate nurses to expect anything else.
In addition to BA cancelling my return flight and not rescheduling it, leaving Italy proved more problematic than entering. At the departure gate I was told to wear a mask before boarding the bus to the plane. I duly fished out my disposable surgical mask to be shouted at by the member of staff: “No, no. No this one; must be FFP2.” I had purchased some in expectation, so I put one on and soon realised how lightly we had got off in the U.K. Wearing an FFP2 is like wearing an S10 respirator without the filter. Laboured breathing and light-headedness from re-breathing carbon dioxide set in within minutes. The cabin crew were all wearing FFP2s when we boarded. As soon as boarding was complete and Italian officialdom had departed, they all changed them for disposable surgical ones. There was a half-hearted announcement about face masks but the word ‘mandatory’ was not included. My mask was off immediately. Relatively happy days!
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry.
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“There was trouble when I went to Mass that evening. ”
So Durham cathedral aren’t the only ones! A bit of a contrast to rural churches in Romania where mask wearers were reportedly told off for being disrespectful.
I wonder if Greece wore their financial crisis scars (from the ECB, the World Bank and the other one) like a badge of honour? Easy to tell the former fascist (or other totalitarian countries).Sometimes – although Romania is obviously different.
Governments worldwide have staked their reputations on their own level of Covid response over the last 2 years.
Thus it isn’t surprising that they’re keeping them going, and are even suppressing any questioning of these measures.
How are Belarus doing these days, I wonder?
And the footage I see from independent journalists on the ground in Ukraine shows no one wearing a mask. Just shows the duplicity of it all.
Reputation?
“We investigated the presence of SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD)–specific antibodies in blood samples of 959 asymptomatic individuals enrolled in a prospective lung cancer screening trial between September 2019 and March 2020 to track the date of onset, frequency, and temporal and geographic variations across the Italian regions. SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific antibodies were detected in 111 of 959 (11.6%) individuals, starting from September 2019 (14%), with a cluster of positive cases (>30%) in the second week of February 2020 and the highest number (53.2%) in Lombardy. This study shows an unexpected very early circulation of SARS-CoV-2 among asymptomatic individuals in Italy several months before the first patient was identified, and clarifies the onset and spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Finding SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in asymptomatic people before the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy may reshape the history of pandemic.”
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0300891620974755
Sars-Cov-2 was circulating in Italy 6 months before lockdowns, but it seems nobody noticed it.
not quite “nobody” George Webb was presenting research on this in 2020, as was Kevin McCairn, Johnathan Couey, Charles Rixey and DRASTIC…
https://twitter.com/RealGeorgeWebb1/status/1523612134533656576
Last time I mentioned this I got agro from someone who doesn’t believe C19 exists. Not been isolated etc. irregardless of whether it exists, the end point is the same — Totalitarian government overreach and we should be on the same side.
What if these antibodies are a response to other corona viruses, does it know the difference, does any difference exist?
we know there PCR Tests had high amplification cycles above 35. We know the PCR at such high cycles pick up dead debris, fragments from various viruses including Corona.
PCR works without a virus. In a sense, the test was the pandemic.
Research now shows higher death rates in areas which enforced masks. Just as they show higher death rates amongst those who had the jab (what you win from reducing deaths from covid, you gain from deaths from the jab). And neither was the lockup a success.
That is the evidence, but the interesting thing will be seeing how evidence based are country’s psyche. Italy seems to be pretty low, Sweden clearly was pretty high.
Did I mention that masking is a filthy habit (and that Belarus did ok)?
You might have yeah, but keep it up it is good advice.
I would imagine that for anyone with a chest infection, the wearing of a mask is going to make it significantly worse, and that is just one example. There is a good reason why health care professionals are trained in the use of PPE, including masks.
Can you imagine a surgeon pulling his mask off after surgery then stuffing it in his pocket to re-use on the next op after lunch?
Fine example of the stupidity.
‘(what you win from reducing deaths from covid, you gain from deaths from the jab).’
Not quite. The CoVid deaths were end of life deaths with 12 months or less on the clock, the gene therapy deaths are fit, healthy young people with decades ahead and families.
We are significantly in negative territory here which, in my view, warrants a murder investigation.
As that tune Matt The Cock goes…..He has blood all over his hands…He killed old Grannies with Midazolam.
You mean this one?
https://t.me/robinmg/19123
Our fault, we liberated them
One of the great things my grandfather helped with. Apparently Monte Cassino was pretty dicey. “To welcome D-Day dodgers in sunny Italy”.
D-Day Dodgers – Hamish Imlach – Bing video
delete
That takes me back…
Sorry Hugh, here it is again:
“The malocchio, or evil eye, is a look of jealously or envy and, according to Italian folklore, it can do some real harm. If someone has looked at you with the malocchio, you might suffer headaches or other physical pain. To counter the evil eye, make the shape of horns with your hand or wear a horn-shaped lucky charm.
https://theculturetrip.com/europe/italy/articles/the-superstitions-in-italy-people-still-believe/
Holiday in Italy.
Studiously avoid tan lines.
Return home with a white kisser.
Sexy……
Net ZERO + ZERO Covid = ZERO Freedom
Flemington, New Jersey has had 113 days over 100F since 1895, with 93 of them occurring before 1970.
https://gab.com/TonyHeller/posts/108292827783017644
Tony Heller
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According to Heller’s stats. Flemington, NJ has had:
113 days >38 degC in 126 years …
or a rate of 0.9 very hot days per year.
of which
20 days have occurred since 1970 …
or a rate of 0.4 very hot days per year.
That’s a fair rate of global cooling in Flemington, but overall it’s very little data. I submit that both sides may be cherry-picking. (The current text on the Met.Office website is dreadful and could have been written by an anxious 18 y old.)
Eight years ago, I looked at Met.Office records for two rural sites in the W Midlands. In about 85 years, there’d apparently been a warming of about one degree K, most of it since the late 1950s. No ‘suburbanisation’ there, as there was at Heathrow.
I’m genuinely worried that too many people nowadays have short-term funding that can be terminated if the answer is ‘wrong’.
It’s been documented in quackery, sorry ‘medicine’, that as the funding of researchers became more restrictive, or shorter-term, the quality of published papers declined. More were likely to be dodgy if and when they were independently analysed by someone honest and competent.
We live in censorious times, that’s the only thing that seems to be certain.
COVID seems to have stirred up the underlying spirit of most nations and it has been very interesting to watch. The dominant trait of the British seems not to be any real love of liberty but “quiet resignation,” as Pink Floyd put it. Most Brits seem to value not making a fuss above all else.
Meanwhile America is split between those who really do love liberty and the puritans who hate it; Australia reverted to a penal colony; Austrians appear hardwired to be sadistic scapegoaters; and it seems no accident that fascism began in Italy.
A different kind of reset. Atavism.
Not to mention the Italian reputation for cowardice
Half of America may be the ‘least bad’ place in the world to live. Moved on from pan-panic. Bonus: safe from American bombs and missiles.
It’s a crass generalisation but I have always found them a nation of overmedicalised hypochondriacs. Hence the particular susceptibility to the fear propaganda in relation to a disease.
Italy is not a democracy.
It is run by the EU and the IMF and is a blue print for what they want the rest of the “free” world to look like.
But no democratic countries are really democratic.
In my previous life, work took me to Italian hospitals: chaotic; primitive; crowded. Usual payment interval for a hospital supply company to get at least part of their invoice paid was two years. Prices to hospitals reflected that, which in turn influenced what they could afford to buy.
Things may have improved since those days, but all indications suggest not.
The ‘crisis’ in Italy was a reflection of the state of its health system, an elderly population of smokers for whom respiratory viruses are a happy hunting ground.
In my current mindset, the worst countries (people) were those who went barking mad on nanoparticles AND are overcome at present with Russophobic rage. By that metric, Italy is one of the worst and, say, Mexico one of the ‘least bad.’ I wish I could be more sanguine about all this, but I wake up disappointed every morning.
Given your qualifications, shouldn’t you have known better than to comply with hazardous tactics like that? Supporting things that do not actually work, and can actually cause problems, is turning a blind eye to the crooks, to some extent.
Dear Roger, good reading and almost (sic!) straight to the point. My home country (Italy) hasn’t had an elected PM for 13 years and counting.
Taxes are already skyrocketing, eg. VAT is at 22%, it is 10% on food and between 4% and 10% for essential items such as medicines and bread. I think we will see a significant increase in the extreme far and left wing parties at the next election.
I’m glad I’ve been to Italy 5 – 6 times. Much as I love the country I’m not a fan of dictatorial regimes and as I’m un-jabbed I’m not likely to be returning any time soon.
I was in Venice a little over a week ago. I was asked for the pass a couple of times by restaurants who said “we have to ask, we don’t need to see”. I did not wear a mask at any point during the week I was there. I was challenged a few times: by supermarket staff, and by attendants in St Mark’s. “Soffro di asma e apnea” worked every time – I had a little lanyard with a “bought off the internet” exemption card. No-one was at all put out – and I had apologies for “having to ask”. My impression was that there was a great deal of compliance with what the government said should happen, but perhaps less agreement under the surface. Anyway, they are lifting/have lifted the requirements now as the entire economy is on its knees. It’s a good time to visit – not crowded and the bars and osterias are really glad to see you.