When the Covid epidemic broke out, Italy "had an instruction manual, this was the pandemic plan. If it then faced the pandemic without a manual, it is because this (...) was rejected a priori without being evaluated by the main technical bodies of the ministry", to which the former minister Speranza "refers (...) when he states that the plan was dated and not built specifically on a coronavirus but on an influenza virus".
Microbiologist Andrea Crisanti writes it in the report on the Bergamo investigation into the management of Covid in Val Seriana against, among others, former Prime Minister Conte and Speranza.
"The reason why more timely and more restrictive actions have not been taken is provided by President Conte when in the meeting of 2 March 2020 he states that 'the red zone must be used sparingly because it has a very high social, political and economic cost'. These considerations prevailed over the need to protect operators in the national health system and citizens from the spread of the infection".
This can be read in the advice of the microbiologist Andrea Crisanti in the proceedings of the investigation by the Bergamo prosecutor and, in particular, in the chapter concerning the missing red zone in Val Seriana.
It will be up to the Court of Ministers of Brescia to evaluate the position of former prime minister Giuseppe Conte and former health minister Roberto Speranza, among those under investigation by the Bergamo prosecutor's office in the investigation into the management of the first wave of Covid in Val Seriana, the most affected by Italy and where between the end of February and the beginning of March 2020 the spread of the virus was now "uncontrollable" due, according to the prosecution's presentation, to a series of delays and omissions due to the failure to establish the red zone and to the non-application of the 2006 flu pandemic plan, the one that was in force three years ago as it was never updated.
"Now complaints for not having closed enough, previously instead for having closed", commented the former premier Giuseppe Conte,
who said he had reported to the Prosecutor's Office about the red zone and that he was "quiet".
In the meantime, the Bergamo prosecutors have sent the documents relating to the positions of the then Head of Government and now president of M5S and of the current Article 1 deputy to their Brescia colleagues.
Folders of papers that the Prosecutor Francesco Prete and his deputies have now begun to examine.
As required by law, they will have 15 days, not to investigate, but only to 'study' the documentation and then send it to the panel made up of three judges with any preliminary requests.
In this case, the Court of Ministers will have to decide within 60 days whether to allow further investigations, otherwise within 90 days it will have to carry out the preliminary investigations following which it will be able to order or
archiving (it cannot be contested) or transmission to the Prosecutor to request authorization to proceed to the relevant Chamber.
According to the investigations, Conte and Speranza have two different positions.
Both respond to an aggravated culpable epidemic but for two different facts.
The former Prime Minister is accused of not having established the red zone in the municipalities of Nembro and Alzano Lombardo despite "the further increase in contagion" in Lombardy and "the ascertainment of the conditions which (...) corresponded to the most catastrophic".
This is a dispute that does not concern Speranza who is only liable for the failure to implement the pandemic plan.
in fact the
then head of the department of Lungotevere Ripa had signed a draft decree with which he proposed to extend the urgent measure of "contagion containment" already adopted in the Lodi area, to the two municipalities of the Bergamo area.
However, this draft was not signed by Conte.
Who, when he was heard in Rome by the prosecutors in Piazza Dante in June 2020 as a person informed about the facts, explained that he had acted "in science and conscience" assuming responsibility for a political choice that came after a confrontation within the government and between the executive and the experts.
A choice.
he said, which was shared with the Lombardy Region which, as required by law, could also have acted autonomously.
For this reason, Governor Attilio Fontana is also under investigation.
According to the reconstruction, he too
with two emails dated 27 and 28 February 2020, sent to Palazzo Chigi, he had asked to maintain milder measures (from the yellow zone) despite "having full awareness" of the situation and without reporting "any critical issues" despite the transmission rate having reached the threshold of 2. So not having wanted this second red zone in Lombardy, for the prosecutors, led to the spread of the epidemic" with an "estimated increase not less than the contagion of 4,148 people" who died. "We did our best commitment, working day and night.
We have been accused of everything and the opposite of everything, I have had complaints in all the prosecutors in Italy for having closed.
I have been accused of being a crazy criminal and liberticidal and now "I'm here"