Aid to Italy for Coronavirus

The virus, totally or almost unknown until three months ago, found the whole world population unprepared. There are no vaccines, there are no cures, there is no system to eradicate it, now. Leaving aside the real hypotheses or the fake news related to its origin and its initial development in China and also to the way in which this virus arrived in the old continent and especially in Italy, one thing is certain: scientists, virologists and scholars of every corner of the globe have started a real race against time to try to beat this sneaky and particularly aggressive enemy at speed.

From the first days of the spread of Coronavirus in Italy, it was understood that the only system to combat this very serious form of viral pneumonia, in certain cases, was the hospitalization of the sick, especially the elderly, in the Intensive Therapies of hospitals, intubating them and thus helping the lungs to perform their function which was otherwise prevented by the disease. But Italy was not ready to welcome all these patients in need of such specialist care: hospitals, especially those in some northern regions, immediately experienced very critical situations with regard to intensive care unit.

To this must be added the need for equipment to protect especially hospital operators but also the police, civil protection volunteers, all those who could be in direct contact with the sick, so as not to aggravate the contagion situation. Masks were missing and in part are still missing (both the specialized ones fpp2 and fpp3 and the simpler ones for the common population). There was a lack of specialized clothing for immune defense, there were no tools for sanitizing the areas at risk, especially doctors and nurses were missing.

Here I do not want to enter into the rather sterile controversies of those who blamed these failings on the state disorganization, on the unpreparedness of scholars, on the recklessness with which certain political decisions were made in the first days of the infection. The problem is that Italy was really in a critical situation: the infected and unfortunately also the dead were more and more: hundreds, then thousands. Messages of closeness came from all over the world to the drama of our population; Europe, which initially looked at our situation with detachment, considering it "distant", began to understand that the problem was not only very close but was ready to hit all the countries of the world.

Thus began a race for international aid to our country: aid was arriving from all latitudes not only in monetary terms but above all in a practical way: doctors, masks, equipment, swabs. The first to come forward was China, perhaps because the first one infected by the virus and therefore the one with the most experience accumulated in this short period. The Chinese task force arrived in Italy with a team of 9 specialist doctors and about 3 million masks, led by the president of the Chinese Red Cross. On 22 March, an airplane from Cuba landed at Milan Malpensa airport with 37 doctors and 15 nurses: they were destined to be a valuable aid for the Crema field hospital, prepared by the Italian army.

The high professionalism and ability of Cuban doctors is recognized all over the world: they were employed in Haiti, during the terrible earthquake that hit the region and then during the cholera epidemic; they have made a great contribution to the care of Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and are going to help our healthcare staff with specific expertise and medicines on this sad occasion. Despite some, in my opinion absurd, controversies that preceded and were then fueled later, Russia is giving very important help to Italy.

The situation in Moscow and throughout the country is not the best but despite this, after a telephone conversation between Prime Minister Conte and Russian President Putin, a large task force was immediately activated which in two stages brought to our country a very large group of military doctors specialized in the field of virology and epidemiology. With an Iliuscin 76 aircraft of the Russian Air Force on which the inscription "From Russia with Love" stood out, they landed at the Pratica di Mare airport: 120 medical specialists, disinfection equipment, a high number of masks, field hospitals and 100 lung fans.

Important aids, both in economic terms and, especially with qualified equipment and personnel, are added to our country from Germany, France, the United States, Albania, the Czech Republic, Romania and Norway. NATO, not wanting to find itself in an inferior situation with respect to the aid provided by countries that are not part of the Alliance, has decided to send masks, protective suits and gels to Italy, then giving the availability to supply other sanitary material, field equipment and also medical and paramedical staff.

This serious pandemic that is affecting our country and the whole world has perhaps awakened in human minds the concept, recently a little too forgotten, of collaboration, help and mutual aid. Political, religious and old enmities have been put aside, reinforcing a real global response to this emergency that has spared no continent. The hope is that all this, combined naturally with worldwide collaboration in the search for a vaccine and a safe cure for coronavirus, will lead, when this pandemic ends, to a more convinced search for peace and collaboration among all.