Matteo Salvini's opposition League
party attacked Premier Giuseppe Conte on Friday after it emerged
that the government failed to follow the advice of its CTS panel
of experts to seal off two Lombardy towns that were among the
first to be hit by the coronavirus in Italy.
Declassified documents showed that the CTS advised the
government to set up 'red zones' at Nembro and Alzano Lombardo
by sealing them off and locking them down on March 3.
The government had initially sealed off several towns in the
province of Lodi and one in Veneto, Vò, in the early stages of
the COVID-19 emergency here.
The same measures were not applied to Nembro and Alzano Lombardo
though and later in March the government imposed a national
lockdown.
"In a normal country, the premier would resign at once after the
publication of these documents as he is the person politically
responsible for the actions of his government," said League
Senator Roberto Calderoli.
Calderoli and other League lawmakers from the hard-hit province
of Bergamo, Daniele Belotti, Simona Pergreffi and Rebecca
Frassini, argued that the government "wasted precious days to
contain the spread of the virus".
Earlier on Friday Salvini said Conte and his government should
be "taken to an international court for holding captive half of
Italy" by imposing a national lockdown rather than sealing off
these towns.
Emilia-Romagna Governor Stefano Bonaccini, on he other hand,
said that "it is much easier to speak after than at the time".
"The central government and the regions spent night and day
trying to write ordinances and decrees, making things up as we
went along to some degree as we did not have much experience to
draw from," Bonaccini, a member of the Democratic Party (PD)
that supports Conte's government, told La7 television. "I think
the country reacted. Certainly mistakes were made.
"We were unprepared
"But it seems to me that Italy managed it the best way it could
and with better results than other Western democracies".
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