League attacks Conte over Lombardy hotspots

(ANSA) - ROME, 07 AGO - 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". (ANSA).