Sceptical Optimism
The gates are open. As of today, Italians can travel throughout the country uninhibited. There is one caveat if you travel by car with people whom you don’t live with: You have to wear a mask and physically distance in your car. Not doing so could cost you up to €533. I do wonder how much money the Italian state has racked up with all these Corona fines.
In most states, visitors will have to have their temperature measured before entry. They will be sent back home if their temperature exceeds 37,5 ° centigrade (99,5°F). On a side note, considering how many other tell-tale symptoms have been uncovered since we first started hearing about Covid-19, and the fact that fever is not even present in all infected people, and that even a low grade fever could be a symptom, I don’t understand why fever remains such a big focus, and why the temperature of 37,5 ° has been chosen as the limit.
I remain convinced that a lot of the safety measures being required are totally arbitrary. A great illustration of this is my recent experience with doctor appointments. Since the lifting of the lockdown I have been to the gynaecologist, the dentist, the dermatologist and have taken my son to the cardiologist. The gynaecologist chided me for arriving without gloves. She made me wear gloves and shoe coverings (I was wearing a mask). There I was sitting in the dreaded chair with my most intimate areas fully exposed (I could be wrong, but I am not entirely sure she was wearing a visor, and she was most certainly not maintaining any distance), but with my hands, feet and mouth covered. Apologies if this is TMI.
At the dentist, in addition to wearing gloves, shoe coverings and a gown, I had to wear a cap. A cap? My mouth was uncovered and wide open. What is the theory on catching or transmitting Covid through your hair? The dentist definitely wore a visor. I noticed his assistant was wearing a cap, but one with a big hole at the back, through which she had pulled her long hair, which was therefore exposed. So, the risk of hair transmission is only close to the scalp? At the dermatologist I didn’t have to wear a cap, even though I took my mask off. But I did wear shoe covers and gloves. And, at my son’s cardiology appointment we both wore only masks. This was in a large, public healthcare centre, and no one required us to wear foot covers or gloves. The doctor wore two masks. The only common denominator in all these medical appointments was that they measured our temperature. I rest my case.
Along with the reopening of interregional borders, the government has launched the tracing app Immuni. So far 500,000 Italians have downloaded it (considering Italy’s population of 60 million, that’s less than 1% of the populations, but the government is already hailing its success even though it already has bugs). Still, I don’t understand its value if there is not a widespread antibody testing campaign, nor a large team of tracker tracers at work. The good news is, that if you believe what you read (and well, I like to be sceptically optimistic), the numbers are really looking good. Yesterday the Civil Protection agency only reported 318 new cases for an increase of 0,14% and 55 deaths*. Numerous regions reported no new cases at all.
On today’s closing note, as I like to keep an international perspective on the virus, I’d like to thank my friend Naomi for making me aware of the fact that in the UK, having sex with a person you don’t live with is now illegal (at least indoors). Also, it appears that Sweden’s chief epidemiologist has admitted that their strategy for containing the virus could have been better. Congratulations for stating the obvious.
*Still, if you compare this to Spain, where the outbreak occurred slightly later than Italy, they had no new deaths a few days ago.