A Calculated Risk
Last night, Prime Minister Conte and the heads of Italy’s regional governments pulled an all-nighter to agree on the timeline and guidelines for Italy’s reopening. Over the last week, the debate between regional governors and the Prime Minister has been raging, and the governors were threatening to stand in the way of the latest decree being officialized.
One topic of heated discussion has been the overly strict and somewhat arbitrary guidelines issued by the INAIL (Italy’s occupational health and safety administration) about safety distances for example. Giovanni Toti, governor of the region of Liguria warned that too many expert opinions and technicalities would drown Italy definitively. Overnight it was decided to simplify the guidelines greatly, and reduce the distances required. Restaurants now only need to keep customers one meter apart, for example. It seems that the “War of the Meter” has been won. The other topic was whether regional governments should have the decision power to set their own guidelines or whether the rules should be “all for one, and one for all.”
It was agreed that the rules should be the same across Italy. And so, a whole new set of guidelines were issued including distances, and temperature measurement and so on and so forth. For example, restaurants can only accept customers who have made a reservation. They have to keep a record of the people who were at their restaurants for two weeks so as to enable tracking in case of an outbreak of infections. I am thankful I am not a business owner who has to make sense out of these rules . It’s hard to discern between what is mandatory and what is merely a suggestion. For example, the guidelines for practically every business type state that a customer’s temperature “may be measured”. What does that mean? You can measure people’s temperature, but you don’t have to? Why?
Conte declared that we must accept the calculated risk of moving forward. So far, numbers are stable. While there are still new infections daily, the growth rate is small (at the latest bulletin there were 875 new cases for a growth of 0.4%). Also, yesterday we had the lowest amount of deaths (153) since the beginning of the lockdown. All systems remain on go. Tomorrow shops, hairdressers, beauty salons and beach clubs can reopen along with hotels. And we can finally see our friends. On May 25th, gyms and pools reopen. And on June 3rd, in addition to interregional travel being allowed, Italy will open its borders to EU countries. That is to say, Italy will open its borders, but it is unclear if the feeling is mutual. Spain is still in a state of emergency for another month anyway. But the EU is working hard towards the goal that by June 15th all Schengen borders will be open again, with no restrictions. A big meeting is planned for tomorrow. That European tour you were planning this summer? Maybe it’s time to start dreaming about it again.