"The synergistic and supportive effort of institutions at every level has made it possible to contain an intangible enemy in the name of a global rebirth".
The heart of the message from the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella on the occasion of the National Day in memory of the victims of Covid was a strong reminder of the value of everyone's collaboration to overcome the challenge of the pandemic.
A particular occasion especially for Bergamo, which was the epicenter of the first wave of the pandemic, and which remembered those days with a ceremony at the monumental cemetery.
In his message for the Day, the head of state underlined that the coronavirus "has generated a crisis that has sounded terrible, experience of the challenges facing humanity and how only a globally coordinated response has been able to face it, with the acceleration in the implementation of the most recent research discoveries in which the European Union has been the protagonist - underlined Mattarella -".
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni underlined that "the pandemic has upset our lives, but the Italian people found the strength to react. And they did so with humanity, solidarity, unity and self-sacrifice. This is the most precious legacy of that crisis , which we must be able to remember and which can still teach us a lot. The pain for the many lives lost is a wound that is still open."
The European Union cited by Mattarella for its role in overcoming the emergency was represented today in Bergamo by the commissioner for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni who, on the sidelines of the ceremony, referred to the procession of military trucks which, exactly four years ago , they brought hundreds of coffins to various cities in Italy because the crematorium in Bergamo was no longer sufficient.
"Those images - underlined Gentiloni - have awakened something in the conscience of Europe: the need for a great common intervention of solidarity after the first weeks of closure and national selfishness".
"In Brussels - the commissioner recalled - the first response was one of absolute closure: France and Germany banned the export of masks and respirators and it is incredible how from those closures we moved on to the greatest solidarity".
Welcoming Gentiloni and the other authorities, including the president of the Superior Council of Health Franco Locatelli, was the mayor Giorgio Gori, who used strong words in defense of public health: "We will fully honor the memory of the people of Bergamo and of the Italians who have fallen due to the pandemic if and when we reaffirm, with facts, the irreplaceable value of public health and the National Health Service".
While Lombardy's welfare councilor, Guido Bertolaso, remembered "doctors, nurses, 118 operators who lost their lives working to counter the advance of the virus. That emergency is behind us - said Bertolaso - and has left our legacy is the drive to improve and reorganize the management of social and health services: in Lombardy we are doing this with the utmost commitment to provide the answers that citizens expect".
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