For days, experts have emphasized the importance of safety devices for health workers, doctors and nurses but also for the population, but masks, gloves, gowns and visors are increasingly unavailable. The situation is particularly delicate in Lombardy where yesterday the governor Attilio Fontana made it known that production will soon be achieved to guarantee self-sufficiency for the masks, thanks to the Lombard companies that are reconverting their production. Before being able to produce the masks, however, the companies must communicate the standards to be respected and the results of the filtering tests of the same masks. This task falls to the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and today the president of the Institute, Silvio Brusaferro has declared that the experts are ready.
"We are ready: as soon as we have the results on the technical tests of filtering capacity of the masks we can make them immediately authorized," he said. "We have over 80 authorizations to produce pending and since the technical tests of filtering capacity of microorganisms will be brought to us, within an hour we can issue the authorizations, but in the meantime the manufacturer can produce them."
"Certainly - he noted - we cannot afford to put into circulation instruments that do not have the performances for which they were requested. On the one hand we must respect international standards and on the other we must ensure that the instruments available to operators comply with the standards" . The ISS "doubled the staff in charge of the masks in 24 hours, dealt with 800 practices and 1400 interlocutions with requests for clarifications which were answered and assessed the tests presented and gave indications to the manufacturers on the filtering capacities".
But Fontana insists: "As always the bureaucracy is terrible" and "does not give up: we have a company that could make 900 thousand masks a day and that we could immediately distribute, with fabrics sought by the Milan Polytechnic, nevertheless the ISS has asked for time in order to issue the certification that allows us to distribute "he underlined.
"I hope the government will take immediate action to support Governor Attilio Fontana's request: it is unacceptable to risk dying of bureaucracy." This was stated by the secretary of the League Matteo Salvini on the denunciation of the governor of Lombardy on the ISS stop to the distribution of masks with Polytechnic fabrics. "Tomorrow I will tell Conte to immediately unblock the bureaucracy to distribute the masks - added Salviini -. Then we will make many concrete proposals for the health of citizens". The secretary of the League will meet with the other opposition leaders the premier at Palazzo Chigi.
The governor of Veneto, Luca Zaia entered the question by asking the Civil Protection to stop the order that provides for the seizure of surgical masks, "because it is right that retailers, supermarkets and pharmacies can buy them. But to do so seizures must be at the Customs ". "We stayed the first three weeks, even in hospitals, with the almost total absence of these devices, and this allowed the spread of the infection. Today the masks are there, for a week we have been supplying them to everyone. We in Veneto, thanks to the support of a large company, we also made them 'at home' ".
Commissioner Domenico Arcuri also intervened on the issue, who recalled that Italy has purchased 300 million masks and the devices "will gradually arrive in the civil protection warehouses and will be distributed with the criteria that we have agreed with all the regions, also for guarantee absolute transparency and avoid asymmetries ". In addition, added Arcuri, yesterday "a sufficient amount of masks were delivered to the doctors' order". "We think - he concluded - that they too must be equipped with a sort of 'spare warehouse', so that they can make up for or add equipment that goes directly to them". "We have made many steps forward in the national production of masks in a week. The top 25 companies in the fashion chain since yesterday have produced 200 thousand surgical masks per day. They have a plan to go to 500 thousand a day next week and 700 thousand that next; companies in the personal hygiene sector have made 250,000 masks a day since yesterday, will reach 400,000 next week, 750,000 the following week. "
