Garage in Milan available to House Crude Oil
Yesterday we reached an important milestone in the progression of the Covid-19 pandemic here in Italy. For the first time, the total cases of patients that are Covid-positive declined. To be clear, there were still new infections, an increase of 1,3%, but the total amount of people who currently have the virus declined by 20 from the day before. Also, people are still dying of the virus, and not in insignificant numbers. 454 died in the last 24 hours.
It is not clear how these new infections are occurring. One study in Germany has shown that catching Covid-19 in a supermarket is highly unlikely. Massimo Galli, the director of the infectious disease department at the Luigi Sacco hospital in Milan posits the source of new infections, the new “hot zones” are families, where one member has the virus but isn’t aware of it or cannot get tested. It would be good to get to the bottom of this. I can only reiterate what I’ve said so many times, it really doesn’t appear we know enough about this disease. Case in point, today I read that in Aosta, a baby was born Covid-19 positive. Its mother was positive and had 38° C fever when she gave birth. This is the first case of in utero transmission that we’ve heard about here, also in China, where research was conducted on pregnant women, the virus had not been detected in utero.
Prime Minister Conte posted on his Instagram account last night that within a few days (before the weekend) he will release a clear roadmap for the infamous Phase 2, which will hopefully begin on May 4th. Everybody is assuming that this date is definite, but if you read between the lines, as a couple of us do, you will see that there is no commitment to this date, and that it remains conditional on the R0 reaching 0.5-0,7. It is currently at around 0.8 (according to the last update I could find).
The debate about Phase 2 has reached a fever pitch, with spats happening between regional governments. When the president of the Lombardy region Attilio Fontana started pushing for a reopening, the president of the Campania region (in central/southern Italy, where Naples is) Vincenzo de Luca threatened that he would close the borders. Lombardy remains a hot zone, and given the fact that most of the infections in the South occurred because of people travelling there after the lockdown here, Mr. de Luca is in no mood to receive any more infected Northerners. Indeed, it’s looking likely that in Phase 2 it will continue to be prohibited to travel outside of your municipality of residence unless you need to do so for work or an emergency. I can sympathise with Mr De Luca, but I just hope that he changes his mind by summer. I suspect that by then the death of tourism will become a greater threat than that of coronavirus. With this in mind, I’m going to dedicate him this Neapolitan song called “Resta cu me”: stay with me, don’t leave me, Vincenzo.
A sad side narrative to the Coronavirus lockdown is the increase in domestic violence. Since the lockdown 7 women have been killed by their partners. In March, the number of women asking for help from a domestic abuse organisation increased by 74,5%. And yet, when you read the newspapers you see far less about this subject than about whether the soccer season will be allowed to resume in Phase 2.
Final thought of the day: Can we discuss the price of oil going negative yesterday? If you have been reading my blog since the beginning you will know that I was born in the 1970s during the oil crisis, when the opposite was true, and people queued endlessly to fill up their cars. How strange to witness the opposite happening! Does anybody know how I can volunteer to house some crude oil here in Milan? I have a garage that could definitely accommodate a few barrels. I’d be happy to put a few more right in my apartment! I’d be delighted to be paid for it, there certainly seems to be no other way to make any money.