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Covid-19: Anger in Italy after opera star Andrea Bocelli urges people to defy rules

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli attacked the government on Monday, saying he was "humiliated and offended" by the coronavirus lockdown and urging people to disobey rules still in place.

Published: 28 July 2020 10:37 CEST
Covid-19: Anger in Italy after opera star Andrea Bocelli urges people to defy rules
Tenor Andrea Bocelli became a symbol of national unity during Italy's three-month lockdown, which he heavily criticised on Monday. Photo: AFP
“I felt humiliated and offended. I could not leave the house even though I had committed no crime,” Bocelli said.
 
The 61-year-old also said that he admitted to violating the lockdown rules, as he did “not think it was right or healthy to stay home at my age,” Italian media reports.
 
He added that he doesn't believe the pandemic was as bad as the government made it seem – as he does not personally knowing anyone admitted to intensive care with the disease.
 
“So what was all this sense of gravity for?” he said.
 
His comments came at a Senate conference attended by opposition politicians including Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party who has attacked the government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte over the handling of the coronavrius crisis and repeatedly criticised lockdown rules.
 
 
Bocelli also encouraged others to break the continued mask-wearing and social distancing rules, saying: “Let's refuse to follow this rule.”
 
“Let's read books, move around, get to know each other, talk, dialogue.”
 
In Italy, where more then 35,000 people have died due to Covid-19 according to offical data, precautionary measures remain in place. The government warns that while the worst of the crisis now seems to be over, the virus has not disappeared and people must remain cautious.
 
Bocelli's remarks came as a surprise as the tenor had become a symbol of national unity at the height of the lockdown, when he sang in an empty Milan cathedral on Easter Sunday in a live-streamed solo performance called Music for Hope.
 
Massimo Galli, head of the Infectious Diseases Unit at the Luigi Sacco Hospital in Milan, told Italian news agency ANSA that the conference sent an “inadequate, dangerous” message with “no scientific basis.”
 
The comments caused outrage on social media in Italy among scientific experts, celebrities and members of the public alike.
 
Nino Cartabellotta, head of the Gimbe evidence-based medical research foundation, slammed both the statement and the conference, saying: “Minister of Health Speranza and President Conte reaffirm social distancing and the use of masks. But the protection of the right to health is now debased by mere political opposition.”
 
He also tweeted agreement with Italian rapper Fedez, who wrote: “If you don't know anyone who has been in intensive care and you'd like to instill the idea that the pandemic was science fiction, I introduce a friend of mine who had a lung transplant at 18 years old because of Covid. Staying quiet every now and then doesn't hurt, huh?”
 
Other social media users posted photos of relatives who had died from Covid-19 and whose funerals they had not been able to attend, venting their anger at suggestions the pandemic was an “invention”.
 
On Tuesday morning, the hashtag #BocelliVergognati (Bocelli be ashamed of yourself) was trending on Italian Twitter.
 
Italy's strict nationwide lockdown was announced on March 9th and lasted almost three months before being gradually eased.
 

 

Member comments

  1. Perhaps Mr. Bocelli should spend some time with the medical workers who were under so much pressure during the height of the pandemic and lost numerous
    colleagues. There is so much ignorance out there and when those who have a voice cast doubt, it makes it so much more difficult to get on top of COVID-19.

  2. Bocelli isn’t looking the sharpest tool in the shed here. He doesn’t realise the reason he doesn’t know anyone affected is because Italy, Europe and practically the entire planet went into lockdown. We have relatively “low” numbers of dead so far because enough people all over the world were willing to be grown ups and take coronavirus seriously. No thanks to people like him.

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

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Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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