Italian journalist Mattia Ferraresi says many of his fellow citizens were “too selfish to follow suggestions to change our behavior” when it comes to the coronavirus and is warning people in other countries not to follow in their footsteps.
Ferraresi, who usually writes for the Italian newspaper Il Foglio, penned an op-ed for The Boston Globe regarding the country’s struggle with the coronavirus. He said that because Italians didn’t take the warning signs seriously, more people got sick and now their health care system is “on the brink of collapse.”
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The hospital system quickly became overwhelmed across the country, making those difficult decisions prevalent. Ferraresi explained that this was due to a virus that many Italians “failed to take seriously. He warned other countries not to make the same mistake:
We of course couldn’t stop the emergence of a previously unknown and deadly virus. But we could have mitigated the situation we are now in, in which people who could have been saved are dying. I, and too many others, could have taken a simple yet morally loaded action: We could have stayed home.
What has happened in Italy shows that less-than-urgent appeals to the public by the government to slightly change habits regarding social interactions aren’t enough when the terrible outcomes they are designed to prevent are not yet apparent; when they become evident, it’s generally too late to act. I and many other Italians just didn’t see the need to change our routines for a threat we could not see.
He explained that Italy is 10 days ahead of France, Germany, and Spain in the epidemic progression and 13-to 16 days head of the U.K. and U.S. – READ MORE
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