Italy‘s prime minister has stayed ‘totally calm’ after a three-hour grilling on his response to the coronavirus pandemic – saying ‘I have nothing to fear’.
Prosecutors are looking to launch a probe into the Italian government’s handling of the deadly virus after it killed 34,223 people in the country.
‘I explained everything to prosecutors. I am totally calm,’ Giuseppe Conte said in an interview published on Saturday, a day after his meeting with chief prosecutor Maria Cristina Rota.
‘I detailed all the stages in these terrible days during which we fought an invisible enemy. I have nothing to fear,’ the premier told La Stampa newspaper.
Conte said he believes he ‘acted based on science and conscience,’ adding: ‘I have the serenity of one who always carried out each step with the scientific technical committee.’
Prosecutors are looking to launch a probe into the Italian government’s handling of the deadly virus after it killed 34,223 people in the country. Pictured, PM Giuseppe Conte at a press conference on June 11
‘I am not expecting to receive a notice of an opening of a judicial investigation. I have never feared one.’
Italy was one of the hardest-hit countries in the world after the virus spread rapidly through the nation’s north.
Chief prosecutor Ms Rota and her team are trying to find out why a lockdown was not enforced early in the health emergency around the towns of Nembro and Alzano in the northern province of Bergamo.
Health experts say had the area been quarantined, many lives would have been saved.
The team has already met with senior officials in Lombardy, who say it was up to Rome to decide whether certain areas should be shut.
Conte has countered that regions had full discretion to close certain areas where the virus had begun to flare in late February and early March.
‘As I have already told investigating magistrates, the chronology of events is very clear,’ the premier told La Stampa.
Bergamo prosecutor Maria Cristina Rota makes a statement to journalists in front of Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the Government of the Italian Republic and the residence of the Prime Minister
‘In light of the epidemiological framework available to us during the first week of March, it would have made no sense to close only the towns of Alzano and Nembro,’ he said.
‘Our problem at that moment already was to study drastic and immediate solutions for all of Italy. And that’s what we did.’
The first town in Italy to be quarantined was Codogno, about an hour south of Nembro and Alzano, on February 21.
Another nine towns around Codogno were subsequently locked down before the entire region of Lombardy and 14 provinces in neighbouring regions of Veneto, Piedmont and Emilia Romagna were quarantined on March 8.
Conte imposed a nationwide quarantine on March 10.
Cuban Doctor Roberto Arias Hernandez (R), specialized in internal medicine and member of a team of Cuban doctors who came to Italy two months ago to help fight the coronavirus outbreak, wearing personal protective equipment
It was revealed earlier this week that more than half the residents tested in Italy‘s northern province of Bergamo have COVID-19 antibodies, amid an ongoing debate into what protection they provide from the virus.
The city was hit hard by the pandemic that was first detected in February and prompted a strict lockdown that has devastated the economy.
Just last week the country moved into the final stages in easing its lockdown restrictions after almost 34,000 coronavirus deaths, with some 235,000 confirmed cases.
Blood tests of 9,965 residents between April 23 and June 3, showed that 57 per cent had antibodies indicating they had come into contact with the coronavirus, the survey showed.
FMedical staff member are seen next to patients suffering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the intensive care unit at the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, in May this year
Health authorities in Bergamo said the results were based on a ‘random’ sample which was ‘sufficiently broad’ to be a reliable indicator of how many people had been infected in the province, which became the epicentre of Italy’s outbreak.
In a separate statement issued later, the Bergamo health agency said that most of those in the sample were residents of the worst-hit areas. Many had already been put under quarantine, the statement added.
The study also suggests the area may be approaching ‘herd immunity’, that experts believe could be at around 60-65 per cent.
Herd immunity is when enough people become resistant to a disease – through vaccination or previous exposure – that it can no longer significantly spread among the rest of the population.
However, scientific experts cannot say for certain if having antibodies means that you are immune from getting the disease again.
Antibodies were found in just over 30 per cent of the 10,404 health operators tested although they are generally considered more at risk than other people.
Graves of people who recently died due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are seen at the cemetery of Nembro, near Bergamo, on May 13
In a report released in early May, national statistics institute ISTAT said the number of deaths in Bergamo was up 568 per cent in March compared with the 2015-2019 average, making it Italy’s worst-hit city in terms of deaths.
Its hospitals were overwhelmed by infected people and, with morgues unable to keep up, convoys of army trucks carrying away the dead became a chilling symbol of the global pandemic.
Bergamo province has reported 13,609 coronavirus cases, official data showed on Monday.
ISTAT and the health ministry have launched a nationwide blood testing campaign, aiming to test a representative sample of some 150,000 people to understand the extent of Italy’s COVID-19 epidemic.
Italy has reported almost 34,000 coronavirus deaths, with some 235,000 confirmed cases.
The Lombardy region, which includes Bergamo, has registered over 16,000 deaths.