Italy’s virus deaths plunge to lowest since March 19

AFP

5 Apr 2020163

Rome (AFP) – Italian officials said Sunday they may soon have to consider easing restrictions after seeing the daily coronavirus death toll plunge to its lowest in over two weeks.

The 525 official COVID-19 fatalities reported by the civil protection service was the Mediterranean country’s lowest toll since 427 deaths were registered on March 19.

They also represented a decline of 23 percent from the 681 deaths reported on Saturday.

“The curve has started its descent and the number of deaths has started to drop,” Italy’s ISS national health institute director Silvio Brusaferro told reporters.

“If these data are confirmed (in the coming days), we will have to start thinking about Phase 2,” he said in reference to an easing of a month-long national lockdown.

Unchartered waters

Italy’s second phase of the battle against a virus that has now officially killed 15,887 may be trickier for the government to pull off than the first.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte decided to address Italy’s biggest crisis in many generations by sacrificing the economy for the benefit of the health care system.

The nation of 60 million became first the Western democracy to voluntarily shut down almost all businesses and ban public gatherings — including simple walks in the park — on March 12.

His gamble appears to be paying off.

Officials reported the first decline Sunday in the number of non-critical COVID-19 patients receiving hospital care across the country’s 22 regions.

That number fell from 29,010 on Saturday to 28,949 on Sunday.

The number of critical patients edged down from 3,994 on Saturday to 3,977 on Sunday — the second successive decline.

But the hit to the Italian economy will be massive.

The country’s big business lobby Confindustria estimates that this year’s production will shrink by six percent if the lockdown remains in place until the end of May.

Confindustria believes that any additional week after that will chop another 0.75 percent off Italy’s total output — the European Union’s third-largest last year.

The second phase of Italy’s battle against the pandemic represents an easing that no Western nation has tried since the virus spread from China to Europe in February.

Italian health officials remain extremely cautious because they know that the death toll is falling almost certainly because everyone is spending almost all their time at home.

Civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli called Sunday’s drop in reported deaths “good news.

“But we should not let our guard down,” he warned.

Five-point plan

Italian media on Sunday said Conte’s government was preparing a five-point plan that would open up businesses in stages and keep many of the social distancing measures in place for some time.

Corriere della Sera daily said Italians would be asked to go to work with facemasks and required to stay two metres (six feet) apart in public at all times.

Anyone who shows the slightest COVID-19 symptoms must be immediately reported to the health authorities and isolated for two weeks.

Italy is also reportedly planning to build more coronavirus-specific hospitals across the country.

Conte’s government also intends to secure tens of thousands of certified blood test kits to see how many people have developed antibodies for the disease.

Those with the antibodies might have immunity and be allowed to work.

But Italy does not have any certified kits at the moment and when these will be available remains unknown.

It is also unclear whether people with antibodies can still spread the disease.

The government’s final proposal involves using phone apps to “strengthen contract tracing” — a controversial measure that has been tried in countries such as South Korea and Israel.

Privacy advocates say it violates many social norms that Western governments had followed before the pandemic broke out.

New governments in Italy and Spain from a European perspective

05/06/2018

Federico Larsen

L'Ombelico del Mondo

When Giuseppe Conte came for the second time in two weeks at  the Palazzo del Quirinale , seat of the Presidency of the Republic in Rome, all journalists, officials and even passersby surrounding the beautiful building in the center of the capital already knew by heart the possible names of government ministers who would present. And everyone also knew what it was irregular and strange that situation. 
It had been several hours the two leaders of the most popular parties in elections last March 4 were chatting in one of the terraces linking the offices of heads of parliament to block the headquarters of the head of state. The challenge to the unusual 30 ° of that afternoon in late May in Rome was the clear sign that looked to be seen, to some paparazzi in Italian politics a picture of the meeting leaked to the media. All media were live and direct from the surrounding streets, as if it were a hostage. 
The names of the government team should be well weighted, and throughout the day were circulating on the web messages and indiscretions that consolidated list of the new executive "change" as he was named its protagonists. Thus, contrary to what the Constitution provides (in which first the President of the Republic appoints the Prime Minister and only then this presents its list and proposed government), Conte came to the appointment with the already drawn cards. And the most unusual is that he apparently did virtually nothing.
After 88 days of negotiations, all it appeared headed for Italy had finally a political government, emerged from the agreement between Matteo Salvini, head of the xenophobic Lega, and Luigi di Maio, leader of the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), the comedian Beppe Grillo anti-caste concerning the "outraged" Italian and rejects the categories of right and left. 
Who were had happened in February or March such a scenario would have been labeled as dreamers or croakers.The idea that the two most critical games with the  status quo generated by the directives of the European Union (EU), the single currency and social policies of Italian traditional liberal parties (both center left and center right, not so dissimilar among them) succeed in agreeing on a plan of government and names concrete to carry it out, it looked as delusional and dangerous. Distrusts and resentments between Salvini and Di Maio were reduced according to what they were agreeing to. For example, neither take the role of Prime Minister, but there is a third running what others agreed. And to the complicated balance of the Italian political system, an executor Prime Minister is another irregularity unprecedented. How will Conte, the Italian press today question, when you need to define the country's position in the G7 summit next weekend in Canada? Why you consult with Di Maio by WhatsApp and Salvini?
A politician, and political change
The first lesson of the lengthy Italian political crisis although it is difficult to know whether actually been closed or not, is that the rules set forth from liberal institutions are limited demonstrating against the political changes that Europeans live. Italy is a parliamentary republic, whose history all governments have been the result of negotiations between parties, usually liberal origin, to achieve majorities stay away from positions of power to the most critical sectors with the system. The republican system as we know it today emerged in Italy with the constitution of 1948. In these 70 years, the country had 65 different governments. A worthy instability of a peripheral failed state, if it were not for the EU's third largest economy and one of the top ten in the world. Evidently,
They have done so for almost 50 years with the Communist Italian, the largest in Western Europe during the Cold War Party, even reaching openly falsify the election results to prevent this from coming to power. But now those who openly criticize these institutions are inexorably most, "the system" must confront them. Some resistance and opposed. When I first came the possibility that Conte came to form a yellow-green government (Lega colors and 5 Stelle), markets plummeted instantly, and major European representatives spared no comments for concern. Then the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella vetoed the name of Paolo Savona (favorable to leaving Italy Euro economist) as Minister of Economy, and he directed the country towards a technical and temporary government to call new elections. Luigi di Maio was the one who raised the possibility of a government Conte, aware that another round of elections had favored, and much, its cyclical partner Lega. Salvini, under pressure from the bases already tired of the comings and goings of lobby , he agreed. 
And now Italy has the most right - wing government in the last 20 years, with a clear sovereignist vision towards the EU and critical towards free markets. Mass expulsion of undocumented migrants, extending to the carrying of weapons and new law on self - defense, wage unemployment Italian citizens, review of obligations under international treaties, increased border control, tax reform regressive, are just some of the promises that the Di Maio Salvini-duo try tomeet in his first year in office, albeit to consolidate the consensus of voters, amid concerns of large, increasingly weakened European powers. 
Winds of change also in Spain
Changes in the politics of Europe told a few days ago with another great shot. That of the leader of Podemos, Juan Carlos Monedero, clutching the shoulders of the former Vice President of Spain, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, as he explains how was glad they left the government. A Chicana why the same purse should apologize especially for being a pretty violent image of a man against a woman but has become the emblem of the fears of Spanish power sectors before the fall of government Rajoy in Spain: those who know arrived.
The Popular Party (PP) is perhaps one of the most representative parties of conservatism elite in European states. Deeply monarchic and madridista, businessman and liberal, he has managed to bring together nostalgic of Francoism and Euro-enthusiasts behind a structure that has been done at the local and national authorities. Rajoy emerged as guarantor of liberal and monarchical order in Spain, managing to keep balance the helm even in very difficult times for his government, as the harsh economic crisis, the demonstrations in the Puerta del Sol, the sieges to the palaces of power, 15M and the declaration of independence of Catalonia. But what defined his fall was one of the characteristics of the power structure that helped shape in Spain: corruption.
Beyond the specific case for which the opposition managed to prosper the censure motion against his government, the history of the PP is linked to a complex system of friends, perks and facilities for small and large business sectors and political leaders they have effectively managed to keep some in government and others in business. The Gürtel, Barcenas, Cifuentes and Bankia case are among the best known, of the nearly 200 criminal charges against officials of the PP in Spain that still need to be investigated. That is, everything indicates that these are not isolated cases of bad apples, but a true  modus operandi. A power bloc that with the fall of Rajoy showed that lost the hegemonic consensus within institutions. The problem is: what now?
Pedro Sanchez led the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) to power when nobody had imagined. In the last general elections, the PSOE took the lowest percentage of votes in its history, a failure that seemed to be worn Sanchez's political career and its surroundings. One year before becoming the new head of the Spanish government, Sanchez managed to miraculously win inside his party and keep on driving with the same team that presumably govern Spain at least until municipal and European elections in May 2019. That is, that while coming to power can be explained from the thunderous whack on the right, one can not doubt his ability to build consensus. Sanchez became president backed by a heterogeneous coalition of parties, mostly progressive, and with very different claims. Many of them have to do precisely with the questioning of status quo  in Spain and Europe. 
" Maduristas ETA and independence"
After the vote on the censure motion against Rajoy, the PP spokesman in Congress, Rafael Hernando, accused jaunty Sanchez having achieved his government thanks to "friends of ETA members, friends Maduro and those who want to destroy to Spain". He was referring to the Basque nationalists, the left can and Catalan separatists, who actually voted for the fall of Mariano Rajoy. The PSOE government certainly born from the convergence of these wills against the PP, which also must be transformed into grants for next year in office. For the Basques, the promise not to amend the budget and had agreed with the previous government, favoring infrastructure projects in Euskal Herria, was enough. Govern  in Barcelona are, in principle, other commitments it has taken Sanchez to hold its executive and perhaps also point to that his presidency will last longer than expected. 
However, market instability and fragility that has demonstrated the Spanish economy remains concerned in Brussels. And Sanchez will soon be demonstrated as the new guarantor of European liberal order in Spain, without losing the parliamentary support of the most critical sectors. In a first view, the new Spanish government seems rather a circumstantial compromise between liberal and pro-European -the PSOE- and other sectors more closely linked to more specific social and sectoral demands.
The deficit problem, ie spending cuts needed to meet the goals set by the EU, remains one of the main themes of the Spanish economic agenda and starting point for growing sectors look askance at Paris and Berlin, where recipes which are then applied in different EU countries are prepared. Many of the sectors represented in the heterogeneous coalition government behind Sanchez, more or less openly flirt with alternative proposals to the German austerity prevailing in the EU economic lines, and ask to renegotiate the rules of the game. A requirement that always get consensus across the continent. 
Sovereignism xenophobic or conservative neoliberalism
The coming to power of a coalition of sovereignist clear profile in Italy and the fall of one of the leading soldiers of European policy in Spain I -dato much more significant than the arrival of the PSOE to power-, fall into a very worrying trend for the hegemonic project within the EU, a year of continental choices. Generally speaking, and without being fed by the international press about the implosion of the block alarmism, it is clear that gaining more ground sector asking to renegotiate the criteria and Community rules in favor of domestic interests, more or less legitimate and reduce the effectiveness of EU supranational.
Let us agree, however, that the EU itself has at least three original sins that feed a structural weakness exploited by these movements. The first has to do with that every time that the EU submitted to popular vote important decisions for its institutional life, he has garnered obstacles and rejections.The most important case is that of the European Constitution, negotiated for years and capsized after spocking in referenda in the Netherlands and France. And, despite not have popular support, European agencies managed to continue on their way, approving the Lisbon Treaty in place of the Constitution and avoiding undergo approval rating. brexit. This opened the possibility that other states also demand it special treatment for their particular conditions, increasingly exalted by nationalist movements. And the third great sin which today greatly affects the development of the EU, has to do with having crushed with unusual violence all kinds of alternative lines of neoliberal orthodoxy proposal. The Greek case is particularly representative in this regard. Even many liberal-conservatives were dismayed at the humiliation to which the EU -particularly Germany- submitted the Greek government during the negotiation of its bailout, amid an economic and humanitarian crisis unprecedented on the continent.
To this is added the political matrix of the movements that are joining the ranks of critics towards the EU. If ten years ago they were the social movements of left as Syriza or can those who defended the idea of ​​a social Europe and solidarity against neoliberal Europe Rajoy, Merkel and Renzi are ultra movement conservatives and right now those in the front row against EU policies. The move traditionalist forces, defense of "small payment" and rejection of the multicultural change. But genuine repudiation of elites. Xenophobic, populist, anti-establishment and Eurosceptics have become option power in Poland, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic and now Italy.Their policy is quite clear: any international organization such as the EU, arises from the voluntary commitment of countries to submit to them, but if national interests no longer coincide with the needs of the international community, each state has the right to prioritize their domestic needs. And sick known and used in the history of international relations to justify all kinds of fechoría- "national interests" body formula, each government understands what he wants. The fight against immigration, debt issuance, border closures, suspension of rights. European bureaucrats and elites, inevitably identified in the German government and, to a lesser extent, French, are then blamed for imposing constraints affecting the life of the popular majority. A simple but effective speech clearly. but if national interests no longer coincide with the needs of the international community, each state has the right to prioritize their domestic needs. And sick known and used in the history of international relations to justify all kinds of fechoría- "national interests" body formula, each government understands what he wants. The fight against immigration, debt issuance, border closures, suspension of rights.European bureaucrats and elites, inevitably identified in the German government and, to a lesser extent, French, are then blamed for imposing constraints affecting the life of the popular majority. A simple but effective speech clearly. but if national interests no longer coincide with the needs of the international community, each state has the right to prioritize their domestic needs. And sick known and used in the history of international relations to justify all kinds of fechoría- "national interests" body formula, each government understands what he wants. The fight against immigration, debt issuance, border closures, suspension of rights.European bureaucrats and elites, inevitably identified in the German government and, to a lesser extent, French, are then blamed for imposing constraints affecting the life of the popular majority. A simple but effective speech clearly. And sick known and used in the history of international relations to justify all kinds of fechoría- "national interests" body formula, each government understands what he wants. The fight against immigration, debt issuance, border closures, suspension of rights. European bureaucrats and elites, inevitably identified in the German government and, to a lesser extent, French, are then blamed for imposing constraints affecting the life of the popular majority. A simple but effective speech clearly. And sick known and used in the history of international relations to justify all kinds of fechoría- "national interests" body formula, each government understands what he wants. The fight against immigration, debt issuance, border closures, suspension of rights.European bureaucrats and elites, inevitably identified in the German government and, to a lesser extent, French, are then blamed for imposing constraints affecting the life of the popular majority. A simple but effective speech clearly.European bureaucrats and elites, inevitably identified in the German government and, to a lesser extent, French, are then blamed for imposing constraints affecting the life of the popular majority. A simple but effective speech clearly.European bureaucrats and elites, inevitably identified in the German government and, to a lesser extent, French, are then blamed for imposing constraints affecting the life of the popular majority. A simple but effective speech clearly.
Despite the election results of 2017, in which the victory of the extreme right in the Netherlands, France and Germany, resentment towards the EU was again expressed in 2018 with the Italian elections and changes in the balance it was avoided politicians in other parts of the continent. One of the main reasons given, surprisingly, the candidate of the Nazi-fascist movement Italian Casapound, Simone Di Stefano, who during the election campaign justified the exponential growth of the members of his party by abandoning the streets by the left . Unions, leftist parties and movements left a huge void in European politics by ignoring the demonstrations, marches, sit-in, Volanteadas, undeniable part of the DNA of the European left movements. And that place has been taken by the extreme right. The Lega planted tens of thousands of tables in the squares throughout Italy in mid-May to subdue the population the government program developed with the M5S. PCI old headquarters are disappearing from Italian neighborhoods to make room for the  Meeting Point  of M5E or, worse, businesses or building speculation. And something similar happens in the rest of the continent.
New governments in Italy and Spain are each in their own way, expression of liberal versus conservative and xenophobic declining and rising conservatism sovereignist. Without a popular, plebeian and social solidarity counterweight it will be very difficult to change the course of European politics, at least in the medium term. 
Source:  https: // ombelico. com.ar/2018/06/03/nuevos- governments-in-italy-and-Spain- in-key-European /