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1/ To look back at those crucial days last March when lockdowns spread globally is to realize NONE OF THIS HAD TO HAPPEN. Italy set the stage when it locked down March 9; at the time it had 9,000 cases out of 60 million people, and a few northern hospitals under serious pressure.
2/ It also had, on March 6, a physician in a hospital in Bergamo (a city near Milan that was the epicenter of the Italian epidemic) making a terrified Facebook post which caught the world's attention but in retrospect contains a few lines that should have been read more closely.
3/ In the post, the doctor wrote that his hospital was near collapse and that "each ventilator becomes like gold."
Yet the specific figure he cited for daily #Covid admissions was far less terrifying: "We arrive at a rate of 15-20 hospitalizations a day all for the same reason."
Yet the specific figure he cited for daily #Covid admissions was far less terrifying: "We arrive at a rate of 15-20 hospitalizations a day all for the same reason."
4/ He also acknowledged nearly all the victims were elderly: "Covid 19 causes a trivial flu in many young people... the most serious [cases] are mainly elderly with other pathologies." (Later, he said he'd seen more serious cases in the young.)
5/ Yet the post's overall tone was very different, alarm verging on panic. And the doctor was clear about what he hoped the post would do:
"Please share and share the message. Word must be spread to prevent what is happening here from happening throughout Italy."
"Please share and share the message. Word must be spread to prevent what is happening here from happening throughout Italy."
6/ He couldn't have been more successful. The original Italian version was shared 40,000 times, and a partial English translation was retweeted 36,000 times. Media outlets all over the world reported the warning.
7/ No one seemed to remember flu epidemics had caused over 40,000 excess deaths in Italy from "influenza-like illnesses" in both 2014/15 and 2016/17 - without any thought of a lockdown, much less a national or global panic.
The Rubicon was crossed.
We're still paying the price.
The Rubicon was crossed.
We're still paying the price.
