Stuvanè
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I just keep asking myself: why Bergamo? (This kind of thinking is an occupational hazard for me.
Looking back over the news from Italy, there was a big conference between Chinese and Italian leaders in Rome about the so called Belt and Road Plan.
However, that was in May of 2019. It doesn't seem possible that it was in China and then in Italy that early. The distinctive pattern of these x-rays would have been obvious, no?
Then there's the fact that, if I remember correctly, the strain in Munich and Lombardia is from Fujian. What reason would people from Fujian have for skipping around Southern Germany and Northern Italy? (In other parts of Germany it's predominantly another strain.)
Fujian is one of the more affluent provinces with many industries spanning tea production, clothing and sports manufacturers such as Anta, 361 Degrees, Xtep, Peak Sport Products and Septwolves. Many foreign firms have operations in Fujian. They include Boeing, Dell, GE, Kodak, Nokia, Siemens, Swire, TDK and Panasonic.
Well, there's the link to Munich. It's through Siemens. The Chinese woman who initially brought it to Munich must have been a Siemens associate from Fujian. No reason for any particular contact with Italy, though, unless her travel history indicates otherwise. That would have come out if it was checked, however, although having doctors do contact tracing makes no sense to me. Put the police, the equivalent of the FBI on it.
It would also be easy to check airplane manifests. Count back 14 days from the first case in Lombardia and from that point start checking for any passengers from Fujian. It's not hard to do if you think like a cop or a prosecutor.
Unbeknownst to doctors and the authorities, did someone who was a more casual contact of the businesswoman escape identification, and perhaps drive over the Alps to ski? It's not only close contacts who might have been at risk. All she had to do was cough on someone in passing on the street, or be in the lavatory with someone and it's done. If that person is asymptomatic and decides to go skiing near Bergamo?
This is how epidemics work, and why the only real answer is a vaccine.
Today some newspapers report the news of some first results from a research conducted by the team of Professor Massimo Ciccozzi of the Campus Biomedico of Rome, according to which Covid-19 arrived in Italy in two different epidemic events, one directly from China and a second mediated from a third country. Basically a kind of pincer that crushed us.
In any case - for what little I understood - I believe that the problem arose from an incorrect evaluation that led to concentrate the efforts and medical investigations on the territory of Lodi and Cremona, having found the first cases there and considering it the most important fire of the infection, when probably the main explosion of the virus was taking place elsewhere: like Bergamo and - at this point (hoping to be wrong) - in Milan. People transiting from abroad or to abroad in Lombardy must pass through the belt of Milan / Bergamo / Brescia. This is where companies, industries and services are concentrated, it is here that two of the airports in the region are located (Linate and Orio al Serio) and it's always here that the bulk of the railway lines and road/motorway axes that connect all Northern Italy in the West-East direction.
Frankly I thought that having found the infection between Lodi, Cremona and the nearby Piacenza in Emilia (very important centers for agri-food production, but in the end "quiet" from a point of view of the movement of people, at least when compared to others cities) should have immediately alarmed the whole region. Instead other logics and assessments prevailed.
There have been all the conditions for multiplying this disaster