Italy’s new wont for obeying rules is saving lives

Strict adherence to protocol has taken the country out of its darkest days of lockdown

Just a few months ago, Italy was an international pariah. A nation the rest of the world regarded with a mixture of pity and terror. At the height of the pandemic, more than 900 people died in a day, and one city in the north, Bergamo, was so overwhelmed with bodies that the army had to be drafted in to take coffins away in a convoy of trucks.

Thankfully, those days seem like a distant nightmare, and the tables are turned. Now, Italians regard the likes of the US and Brazil with anguish and sympathy. Italy has avoided the kind of second wave – or prolongation of the first wave – that has caused such concern in other countries, including Spain, France and Germany.

For the past few weeks, Italy has registered around 150 to 300 cases a day, many imported by migrants or workers returning from abroad. Deaths are down to single digits a day. Italy’s death toll is just over 35,000.

Consensus is emerging as to how the Italians managed to control – the word defeat is far too premature – a virus that went on to ravage so many other countries. There were two key factors: a strict national lockdown that stopped the virus spreading from badly affected northern regions to the rest of the country; and the rigid enforcement of protocols such as wearing masks and social distancing.

The lockdown, imposed in early March, averted the diffusion of the virus to the dysfunctional south, where underfunded hospitals lack the resources of those in the wealthy north. The lockdown was largely respected. For weeks, Italians were not allowed out of their homes unless they had unavoidable work commitments, or had to shop for food or medicine.

All of this came at a heavy price: Italy’s GDP is predicted to drop by at least 10 per cent this year as a result of the closure of industry and businesses. But, a report released this week showed the extent to which the lockdown shielded the centre and south of Italy from the pandemic. The report, by the Italian health ministry and the national statistics agency, found that nearly 1.5million Italians came into contact with the virus, six times more than the official figure. In the northern region of Lombardy, 7.5 per cent of the population tested positive for coronavirus antibodies. In Sicily, just 0.3 per cent have antibodies, and in half a dozen other southern regions, less than one per cent of people had them.

Dr Franco Locatelli, a government adviser on the pandemic, says the geographic variability showed that the lockdown was “absolutely crucial in sparing central and southern Italy from the same epidemiological wave that hit the north”. The report “confirms that the establishment of red zones in the northern regions and then the national lockdown broke the chain of transmission”, according to Roberto Speranza, the health minister.

Since the lockdown was eased, antivirus protocols have been maintained. On buses, trains and ferries, it is compulsory to wear masks, with compliance close to 100 per cent. Office workers who have returned to work have their temperature tested on arrival and are required to wear masks in communal areas. As Italians flock to the coasts on holiday, people wear masks as they queue at beach bars.

The stereotype of Italians as unruly, undisciplined and resistant to rules has been turned on its head. There may have been cultural factors at play. Italians tend to be anxious about health – children are told not to run around and sweat too much in the summer; adults obsess about catching a chill, or worse, from air-conditioning or draughts. Health angst may have encouraged respect for antivirus measures. “The trend is positive thanks to the containment measures,” Marcello Tavio, the president of the Italian Society of Infectious Diseases, told La Repubblica newspaper.

But there is concern over immigrant workers from Eastern European and Asia bringing new cases into Italy. Among a new wave of illegal migrants arriving from Tunisia and Libya, some were found to have Covid-19.

Mr Speranza says Italy is still not out of danger: “We cannot lower our guard. We may be out of the storm, but we are not yet in a safe harbour.”