We are at this point, we have to decide who will live and who will die, who will be cured and who will not. The doctors of the Italian Society of Anaesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (Siaarti) have written in a document that, in the face of the current epidemic and in the event of further worsening, the sacrifice of dozens of people will be inevitable due to their age and fragility.
We read: “It may be necessary to set an age limit when entering the intensive care unit. It is not a question of making purely valuable choices, but of reserving resources that may be very scarce for those who are more likely to survive and secondly for those who may have more years of life saved, with a view to maximizing the benefits for the greatest number of people”.
Read these words again. Then read them again. And do it again. And you will understand the potential tragedy Italy is facing. Civilization is regressing.
Two days ago, the bulletin confirmed the most tragic event since the beginning of this national delirium due to coronavirus, because in one day, 1,247 people were infected, making a total of 5,883.
That's 233 dead. Another 567 people are in intensive care, 1,843 in isolation.
But perhaps the most tragic fact is that Lombardy (the region with the best health care in Italy and now under quarantine) is saturated and will begin to send its sick to other regions. “In the absence of timely and adequate provisions by the Authorities we will be forced to face an event that we can only qualify as a catastrophic health disaster.” This is written by the Coordination of Intensive Therapies of Lombardy.
We have made unforgivable mistakes and one day we will be judged for them: not having checked for the virus and closed the gates as much as we could when it was possible, to find ourselves today in the situation other European countries are in, having turned “the worst epidemic of the century” (quoting Bibi Netanyahu) into a democratic and racist threat and more.
Italy whistled, hummed and smiled, instead of building a basis for public opinion that is then ready if and when the threat knocks on the door.
This epidemic has detonated all of Italy's weaknesses, as if we were a soggy tree, as if everything that is "public" has failed and is now overwhelming the private economic fabric that has always kept us alive and functioning in the north.
In these hours, the families, this foundational institution of mankind, mistreated, ignored, denigrated and harassed by decades of malapolitics and leftist ideology, are explaining to their own, I to my children, my friends to their children, why they cannot go to school.
A country that observes its own decay. They've left us exposed. They didn't protect us. The health care workers, doctors, paramedics are doing a decisive job and getting sick themselves in droves.
We're in full physical decay, too. I can just hope and pray this will pass soon. Or hundreds of Italians will die and there will be no country to rebuild.