Three-time ex-premier and media
magnate Silvio Berlusconi has been hospitalised with COVID-19 in
Milan.
The general condition of the centre-right Forza Italia (FI)
leader is not concerning, the San Raffaele Hospital said.
A CAT scan revealed that he is suffering from "precocious
bilateral pneumonia".
Berlusconi, who had been in domestic isolation at his villa
outside Milan since Wednesday, was taken into the San Raffaele
Thursday night, mainly as a precautionary measure, FI said.
Berlusconi, who turns 84 this month, had a faulty heart valve
replaced in 2016.
Berlusconi said earlier Thursday he was "quite well" and would
take part "in all possible ways" in the campaign for local
elections on September 20 and 21.
"I want to reassure you that I am quite well and I continue to
work and I'll take part in every way possible in the ongoing
election campaign," he said on the phone to a convention of FI's
women's movement Azurro Donna in Genoa.
He said he had been "moved" by all the messages of support and
sympathy he had received from well wishers and even political
opponents.
The former AC Milan owner's partner, a 30-year-old FI MP, has
also tested positive for the virus, as have his children Barbara
and Luigi.
Berlusconi, who turns 84 on September 29, had tested negative in
Sardinia on August 25 after his friend, businessman and former
Benetton motor racing boss Flavio Briatore tested positive after
they met at the magnate's Sardinian villa.
Over 60 COVID cases have been linked to a cluster at the
ex-Benetton boss's Billionaire nightclub.
"This has happened to me too but I continue my battle," said
Berlusconi.
He said he was ready to continue leading FI in seven regional
and hundreds of municipal elections across Italy on September
20-21.
Berlusconi, formerly the owner of seven-time European soccer
champs Milan, was long the undisputed leader of Italy's centre
right.
But FI was overtaken a few years ago by Matteo Salvini's surging
League, a nationalist, Euroskeptic and anti-migrant populist
party.
More recently FI has also been surpassed by another nationalist
populist party, Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy (FdI).
But Berlusconi insists FI remains the "linchpin" of the
opposition to independent Premier Giuseppe Conte's populist and
centre-left government.
The two main government partners are the anti-establishment
5-Star Movement (M5S) and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
The M5S was formerly in government with the League but Salvini
pulled the plug on that 14-month administration in August last
year hoping to force a snap election.
Instead, to his surprise and dismay, the M5S formed an
unprecedented alliance with their longtime foes in the PD.
The new partner of Berlusconi after he left nearly 10-year
girlfriend Francesca Pascale, FI MP Marta Fascina, has also
tested positive for COVID.
Fascina, 30, has been 83-year-old Berlusconi's girlfriend since
he split from 35-year-old former TV showgirl Pascale in March.
Fascina tested positive like her boyfriend Wednesday and is in
isolation with him at his villa at Arcore outside Milan.
She spent the whole of the COVID lockdown with him at the
Provence villa of his eldest daughter Marina, then accompanied
him for a holiday on the yacht of business partner Ennio Doris,
and latterly shared a vacation with the former premier in
Sardinia, where they are believed to have contracted the virus.
Fascina has been an FI MP since the last general election in
2018.
She was born in southern Calabria but has spent much of her life
in Campania, where she was elected.
Berlusconi has served three terms as premier, starting in 1994
and ending in 2011.
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