It has been 100 days since 21 February 2020, when the first case of coronavirus was identified in Italy. We retrace the most important milestones that in three months turned our lives upside down.
On 21 February 2020, a 38-year-old man from Codogno, in the province of Lodi, became the first Italian case of coronavirus. From that day, nothing would ever be the same again — something we would only fully understand much later. We look back at some of the moments that defined these 100 days, highlighting the new awareness we have gained and that we hope will guide us towards a better future, for ourselves and for the planet.
January – February 2020
2020 opened the decisive decade, the last one available, to tackle the climate crisis. We have fewer than 10 years to repair the damage inflicted on the planet by human beings, such as the uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources. Damage that, on 31 December 2019, was about to turn against us in what would become the first global crisis of an environmental nature.
It was indeed on 31 December, at 13:59, that the Chinese government announced the discovery of a number of cases of "unknown pneumonia" in the area around the live animal market in Wuhan, in the south of the country. Within a matter of weeks, infections in China rose sharply, as did the death toll. The cause was a novel coronavirus, Sars-Cov-2, responsible for the disease Covid-19, characterised by symptoms very similar to those of influenza. It was hypothesised that some of the animals slaughtered and sold at the market had infected humans. The situation was so dramatic that within a few days the local authorities postponed the Chinese New Year celebrations, closed all public spaces and built emergency hospitals to cope with the enormous — and rapidly growing — number of sick and dead.
Before long, in a world where the local becomes global, the virus would go on to infect the entire planet with devastating consequences.
Friday 21 February
On Friday 21 February, Sars-Cov-2 was officially diagnosed in Italy. Front pages carried the news that nobody had wanted to read: "Coronavirus, first infection in Codogno. The man has not been to China". Mattia Maestri, 38, from Codogno, a town in the Lodi area, had been admitted to hospital a few days earlier after reporting breathing difficulties diagnosed as "lateral pneumonia". He had not been to China recently; he was a sporty and healthy young man, so there was no reason to suspect Covid-19. Thanks to the diligence of a nurse, it emerged that he had indeed not been to China, but a few weeks earlier he had met a friend who works in Shanghai. He was therefore given a swab test.
That was the decisive moment: Italy — and with it Europe — officially recorded its first case of coronavirus. Anyone who had come into contact with Maestri was placed in isolation. All contacts were traced: the virus could not be allowed to spread. That afternoon saw the first of many daily press conferences, held — among others — by the president of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, the welfare councillor Giulio Gallera and the health minister Roberto Speranza, at Palazzo Lombardia. The situation was tense but, for the time being, appeared to be under control.
Saturday 22 February – Sunday 23 February
On the night of Saturday the 22nd, another worrying piece of news arrives: a 78-year-old man has died of coronavirus. His name is Adriano Trevisan and he is from Vo' Euganeo, in the province of Padua. The man had been admitted to hospital about ten days earlier for pre-existing conditions, but his condition deteriorated so rapidly that "there wasn't even time to transfer him," says the governor of Veneto, Luca Zaia. New cases are recorded in Lombardy, Piedmont and Veneto. The numbers are rising so fast that it is almost difficult to keep track.
On Sunday the 23rd, the Council of Ministers passes the first in a long series of emergency decree-laws: "Urgent measures on the containment and management of the Covid-19 epidemiological emergency." The president of the Lombardy region, Attilio Fontana, approves an ordinance valid across the entire region providing for, among other things, the suspension of public events, the closure of schools of all levels, and the partial closure of bars and restaurants. It is the beginning of a confinement, a quarantine, a lockdown — a word we would all come to know — that would shortly bring the whole of Italy to a standstill.
24 February – 1 March
The virus, as the head of Civil Protection Angelo Borrelli would later tell the newspaper Repubblica, "is travelling faster than us." In less than a week, Italy becomes the third country in the world by number of infections after China and South Korea. A red zone is created around the municipalities hardest hit by the emergency: no one can enter or leave, and a thorough monitoring of infections is put in place. The atmosphere at the daily press conferences reflects that of the country: there is tension, confusion and a measure of fear.
1 March
The month of March opens with a new awareness that would never leave us: it is true that the origin of the new coronavirus is animal, but the main problem is the destruction of habitats caused by human beings. Indeed, 70 per cent of the new diseases to have emerged over the past thirty years are of zoonotic origin. The majority of these diseases come from wild places, untamed by humans, but also from intensive livestock farming, which poses a serious threat to public health, as the swine and avian influenza viruses have already demonstrated. The responsibility for the coronavirus epidemic is therefore entirely human, and the only way we have of healing is to restore our relationship with nature.
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For this reason we also interview Ilaria Capua, virologist, veterinarian and professor at the University of Florida, who became known worldwide for her research on influenza viruses, including avian influenza. She urges us to use our intelligence, because for the coronavirus we are just another animal to infect. "The virus most 'related' to the new coronavirus is found in bats," she tells us. "And this virus, which was previously living quite contentedly inside bats in the jungle, suddenly found itself inside a live animal market — rudimentary markets, filthy with faeces, urine and slaughtering, rather like Italian markets of the 1940s and 1950s, but with a great many different animals, because in Chinese markets there are pangolins, snakes, frogs — and so a wholly unnatural situation arose in which the forest bat found itself exposed to other hosts that amplified the virus, modified it and allowed it to find another animal to infect: the human being." In practice, what occurred was what has been defined as spillover, the species jump. Once again, the same concept is underlined: human beings are the sole parties responsible for this epidemic.
You can never go wrong by respecting nature; indeed, we must respect it more and more. Ilaria Capua
2 – 8 March
The first week of March is one of the most crucial. The infection curve surges to levels never recorded before, surpassing the threshold of 5,000 cases. Deaths also rise vertiginously. The government decides to adopt a series of drastic measures in an attempt to contain the spread of coronavirus across the country. The first is the "closure" of Lombardy and 14 provinces in Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Piedmont and Marche. This measure triggers panic.
During the night between the 7th and 8th of March, railway stations are stormed: people try to return to their home cities, terrified by the prospect of being far from their loved ones during what promises to be one of the hardest periods ever. In doing so, however, they spread the virus further. An investigation carried out by the newspaper Repubblica reveals that 20 per cent of passengers alighting from overnight trains bound for Puglia that night have a fever.
