Stay at home: the ISS asks

The weekly report on Covid-19 by the Ministry of Health and the Istituto Superiore di Sanità tell a story that is extremely clear in numbers and facts, as much as extremely nebulous in the collective perception: Italy, as well as all of Europe , is heading towards a new major health crisis that will force more or less extensive "lockdowns". Here is the word that no one wants to pronounce anymore, preferring declinations such as "curfews" or "surgical closures" which in both cases refer to sad etymologies of war.

Stay home

The report, however, speaks very clearly because it looks at the numbers, the facts, the reports coming from the hospitals: it must be closed. If the state doesn't do it, and if the regions don't do it, then the citizens do it. The report writes in black and white (using a significant bold to give greater emphasis to the appeal):

It is essential that the population reduce all opportunities for contact with people outside their home when they are not strictly necessary and to stay home as much as possible. We remind you that it is mandatory to adopt rigorous individual behaviors and to respect the sanitary measures in place relating to spacing and correct use of masks. The need to comply with the measures recommended by the health authorities is reiterated, including the quarantine measures of close contacts in ascertained cases and the isolation of the cases themselves.



The RT index has returned to extremely worrying levels, the Northern area once again particularly affected (but with the Southern area being worse served from the point of view of hospital infrastructure). After having lost the helm of the tracking, after having ditched Immuni amidst the controversies up to sterilize its usefulness, after noticing the delays in intensive care, after having breathed the worst conspiracies and the worst politics, Italy is so now to have to take an extremely tortuous path: close everything, except school and work if possible. To limit the damage where possible.



“How” is difficult to say. The schools have been remodeled to approach the DAD and empty public transport, while the PA has already switched to an increased smart working for the same purposes. Now it's up to citizens: companies that can make this choice must quickly organize themselves for work from home (sooner or later some coercive formula will arrive), while private individuals are asked to leave as little as possible, in any case not after 11pm. , and only for strict necessities.

The word "lockdown" is not said because it sounds like a cold shiver on the backbone of a country that turns out to be weak, but if you look at the whole world it is clear how the weaknesses they are of an entire system and hit globally without making too many differences. A lot of calm and patience will be needed because a long difficult season has just begun.

Covid-19: all official data

Science, unheard, has tried to warn about what would happen; 100 scientists have now written to the top of the state to ask for radical and urgent action; scientific experiments have become daily news waiting for a vaccine that can turn on a light at the end of the tunnel. In all of this still too few people listen and understand science, preferring politics and talk shows, social media and "I heard that". Compared to March we all have masks, we know everything about containment measures, we know perfectly well what we should do to slow down this second wave, and instead we risk being overwhelmed even more and with more lasting effects.

“Stay at home ”Asks the ISS. A few words to suggest everyone to isolate themselves. Anyone, looking at their situation, imagines solutions for their individual bubble: you organize yourself to work from home, suggest solutions in the company, make yourself available to colleagues to imagine a reorganization. Meanwhile, think of your children, of those who will have to face a difficult new season, of those who will be overwhelmed by this health and economic tsunami.

“Stay at home” has a paternalistic tone that some want to read as dictatorial. But here staying at home is the only real solution we have as a community to push away something that has put us against the wall twice in the same year. Finding yourself weak is humiliating, but perhaps it is from a humiliation that will give rise to more sensible solutions than a summer spent ignoring what all the statistics were already screaming at us. We are in the wrong and we will pay the consequences. Inevitably. However, we still have time to limit the damage, as long as awareness is immediate, like a resounding slap that clears the head.

“Stay home”.

Let's do it. Let's stay at home.

Source: Ministry of Health