Story By: Maja Mishevksa, Sub Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
An Italian nurse has said that COVID-19 has not gone anywhere and still knows “how to do its job” amid a regional spike in cases as residents slowly return to normal life after strict lockdown.
Luca Alini, 47, who has been working as a nurse for 27 years, is based in the city of Cremona in the northern Italian region of Lombardy, one of the country’s most affected areas.
He posted a selfie of him wearing PPE with a message reminding people that the virus has not gone anywhere.
The male nurse was reportedly forced to change his post from public to private hours later after experiencing an online backlash when a hospital clarification was misinterpreted as a denial of his claims.
Rosario Canino, health director at the Hospital ASST in Cremona, was suspected of appearing to downplay the problem when saying there were “ten hospitalizations, two in neumology, one in ventilation and eight in infection diseases”.
In his post, Alini said that although “many people are thinking about visiting the coast or the mountains or enjoying a drink with pals”, the virus “still exists”.
According to news site Corriere della Sera, the nurse said that the new surge in cases is not like the situation seen between February and April.
Alini added that COVID-19 “has not forgotten how to do its job” and “infects new people to survive”.
He also criticised people who downplay the seriousness of the virus or consider it part of a conspiracy theory, and urged residents to remember that “it has not disappeared by magic and it is still claiming victims’ lives everywhere”.
Alini, who was infected by the novel coronavirus but never showed any symptoms, added: “If anybody knows someone who lost a family member to the virus, they should think about this as there are still people refusing to wear a face mask.
“We are not yet free of COVID-19 but it seems like that doesn’t matter. I hope that everything that happened is not repeating itself, but we cannot be sure.
“Most people do not realise that the world is experimenting with an event that will be in the history books forever, for better or worse.
Rosario Canino, health director at the Hospital ASST in Cremona, admitted that “there has been a small wave of new patients coming to the hospital”.
Canino also called on citizens to keep their guard up as there are “too many people taking off their face masks or wearing it below their chin”.
According to the latest figures from the Johns Hopkins University, Italy has registered 243,061 cases of COVID-19 and 34,954 related deaths.
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