Although for those who, like us aperturists, have always contested the massive obligation of masks, what the Undersecretary of Health said about it, Andrea Costa, represents the classic discovery of hot water: “I don’t think the obligation to wear a mask at school is a purely scientific choice, but it is more a political interpretation”. The exponent of Noi con Italia then added, in an interview with RaiNews24that “the goal of the government, which cannot be failed, is to start the year again in presence and without a mask.”
Now, without wishing to belittle too much the encouraging stance of the Ligurian politician, it must always be remembered that since the beginning of a pandemic with low relative lethality, which nevertheless demolished many of the constitutional guarantees that we considered untouchable, in countries where the mask has not been imposed or it was imposed in a very limited way, the data relating to Covid-19 turned out to be better than the Italian onesabove all the emblematic case of Sweden, which in the two-year period 2020/2021 recorded an excess of mortality among the lowest in Europe.
The fact is that even Barbara Floridia, Senator of the 5 Star Movement and Undersecretary for Public Education, takes no half measures with Costa’s position: “Schools have proved – in the difficult months we are leaving behind – safe places, above all thanks to the capacity of the school community to stick to the rules. Without prejudice to the fact that the final decision rests with the ministry of health and the health authorities, I believe it is time that even school can be accessed without masks and freely enjoy all the spaces our children have been deprived of “.
Also the president of the National Association of Presidents of Rome, Mario Rusconiinvokes the exit from the tunnel of the school gag, arguing that “in the eighth grade and high school exams, the obligation to have a mask could very well be abolished: on the other hand, I see that it is allowed that there are also 100,000 fans massed at the Circus Maximus for hours without any obligation ”. But the Ministry of Education itself does not fit in and freezes everyone with a “supreme soviet” style statement: “Until the end of the school year in schools (…) it is compulsory to use respiratory protection devices. And from here, for now, we do not move. There are no technical times to change the law currently in force which provides for the obligation of masks until the end of the school year “.
And in this surreal circus in which The freedom and psycho-physical health of our children has been at stake for over two years, crushed by increasingly incomprehensible coercive measures, a touch of ridiculousness is offered by the CISL school, the vertical of a union that has always been very strong in the public sector. In fact, this is how the secretary Ivana Barbacci expresses herself: “To keep or remove the masks in the eighth grade and high school exams? We want the health authorities to express themselves, the mask is not an accessory, but a device that was used during the emergency to avoid the spread of the virus. We want the health authorities to express themselves for the examinations and for the start of the new year on the basis of the assessments regarding the conditions of spread of the pandemic ”. Pontius Pilate could not have said or done – that is, nothing or nothing – better.
Claudio Romiti, May 28, 2022