The spread of the virus was underestimated, despite the fact that the data available for weeks clearly indicated that the situation in Bergamo was deteriorating, particularly in Val Seriana. At the beginning of March 2020, the carabinieri and police, sent from outside, were ready to lock down the borders of Nembro and Alzano Lombardo. Instead the red zone it was never instituted and those days were the beginning of the catastrophe. Precisely the failure to close remains one of the main fronts of the investigation by the Bergamo prosecutor’s office for culpable epidemicclosed now, three years later, with 17 suspects plus others excluded.
The main suspects
The prominent names are those of the then prime minister Joseph Conte and the former Minister of Health Robert Hope. Then there is the governor of Lombardy (confirmed in the last regional elections) Attilio Fontana with his former welfare adviser Julius Gallera and, again in Rome, but on the less political and more “technical” side, the president of the Higher Health Council Frank Locatelli, the president of the Higher Institute of Health Silvio Brusaferrothe coordinator of the Scientific Technical Committee in the first phase of the emergency Agostino Miozzo and Giuseppe Ruoccosecretary and general manager of the Ministry of Health from 2016 and from 2012 to 2014 in the same role, but for the Prevention sector.
The lack of red zone
According to the hypothesis of the prosecutors of Bergamo, also on the basis of the consultancy entrusted to the microbiologist Andrea Crisanti, who managed the emergency in Vo’ Euganeo, in Veneto, the red zone in Nembro and Alzano could have saved thousands of deaths: if it had been established on February 27, the fewer victims would have been 4,148; as of March 3, 2,659. For Conte and Speranza, who would be registered in relation to this chapter, the documents will be sent at the Court of Ministers of Brescia. The point, for the pool of public prosecutors who examined testimonies and thousands of documents with the judicial police of the Guardia di Finanza, including medical records, health reports and then chats, emails, are the data provided to the Lombardy Region and to the Technical and Scientific Committee , in February 2020, by the director of the Center for health emergencies of the Bruno Kessler Foundation in Trento, Stefano Merler. His estimates would have given those who had to make the decisions the tools to evaluate the enormous danger that the province of Bergamo was running, much more than in Codogno, where instead the decision was to immediately isolate the area.
The other fronts: the pandemic plan and the hospital
The lack of a red zone is central, but the other chapters also remain relevant for the investigators. They had emerged from the beginning of the investigation, with a round of illustrious summons, both in Rome (the Count himself was heard as a witness) and in Bergamo. So, on the one hand there is the non-updating and non-application of the pandemic plan, stopped in 2006, both at central and regional level, and also of the protocols for Sars-Cov1 (from 2002 and 2003) and Mars Cov (2012). Perhaps they would not have stemmed the contagion completely, but they envisaged containment measures that could at least have curbed the virus: masks, safe routes, tampons. Everything was missing in those days. On the other hand, there is the story of the Alzano hospital, squeezed between Bergamo and Nembro, the epicenter, at the time, of the contagion. The doubts of the investigators do not concern so much the reopening of the emergency room, which took place in a few hours on Sunday 23 February 2020 after the discovery of the first case in the Bergamo area, but the fact that from that moment on, despite the number of 96 people infected between patients and health personnel, no measures of any kind were taken. Again, there was not anything, neither protocols nor personal protective equipment, and only the intervention of Army doctors was able to stop the dripping. But it was now mid-March.
The reactions of Conte and Speranza
«I am calm in front of the country and the Italian citizens for having worked with the utmost commitment and with a full sense of responsibility during one of the hardest moments experienced by our Republic”, the first comment, in a note, by the M5S president Giuseppe Conte, who ensures the “maximum availability and collaboration” towards of the judiciary. «I have learned from press agencies news regarding the Bergamo investigation – Speranza affirms -. I’ve always thought that anyone who has had responsibility for managing the pandemic should be ready to account for it. I am very serene and sure that I have always acted with discipline and honour in the exclusive interest of the country. As always, I have full faith in the judiciary ».
Fontana’s lawyer: “Banquet for suspects”
“We didn’t have the slightest sign of participating at the “banquet” of the suspects. Fontana had been heard as a person informed about the facts and since then there has been absolute silence». This is the comment of the lawyer Jacopo Pensa, who assists the Lombard governor. Today, adds the lawyer, «we first learn from the media and without any formal notification that we are among the suspects”. And again: «We note that the Bergamo Public Prosecutor’s Office has underlined that the conclusion of the investigation is not an indictment. We’ll see, we’ll see. It’s not even an act of defense.” Also the former councilor Giulio Gallera specifies that he has not received any notification deed. And then: «I am serene and I will guarantee, as I have always done, maximum collaboration with the judiciary. We faced Covid with our bare hands – recalls Gallera – and, on the basis of the very little information we had at our disposal, we made the most appropriate decisions to deal with the emergency. I have always guaranteed every form of collaboration with the Bergamo Public Prosecutor’s Office as a person informed of the facts, and I will continue to do so. As stated by the Prosecutor’s Office itself, the notice of the conclusion of the preliminary investigations is not an indictment but a guarantee deed for the suspect, who is made aware of the investigative documents and placed in a position to exercise his defense by requesting archiving”.
The families of the victims
The comment from the association of family members of the Covid19 victims also arrived shortly: «From today the history of the Bergamo and Lombard massacre is being rewritten, the story of our families, of the responsibilities that led to our losses. The story of an Italy that has forgotten what happened in spring 2020, not because of Covid19, but because of precise decisions or lack of decisions”.
Prosecutor’s note
After the first leak, in the evening, the prosecutor of Bergamo Antonio Chiappani confirmed, through a terse press release, the closure of the investigation «with 17 people under investigation for various reasons». Conte and Speranza would not be included in the count precisely because the Court of Ministers in Brescia will deal with their positions. And together with theirs, other positions would have been removed. “The investigations – reads the note – they were articulated, complex and consisted of the analysis of a significant amount of documents acquired and seized, both in paper and electronic form, from the Ministry of Health, the Higher Institute of Health, the Civil Protection Department, the Lombardy Region, Ats, Asst, the Pesenti-Fenaroli hospital in Alzano Lombardo, as well as thousands of emails and telephone chats used by subjects interested in the investigative activity, as well as in the hearing of hundreds of people informed about the facts”.
March 01, 2023
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