“As never before, our community must unite and form a chain to protect the most important good of all: life. Should only one block of this chain break, we would all be exposed to far more serious perils.”
It was almost midnight on March 20 when Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte pronounced these solemn words during a televised speech by which – visibly exhausted – he announced the temporary shutdown of ‘non-vital’ productive activities across the country.
Being the first and worst hit county in Europe, this was not the first emergency measure. But all previous measures had failed to delay the spread of the virus. Paradoxically, the government had demanded all citizens to stay home whilst at the same time allowing industry to operate normally, so exposing workers to the virus and the risk of spreading it further. One could observe a positive correlation between the areas most affected by the virus and the location of manufacturing industries in Italy. Trade unions had been demanding their shutdown for at least two weeks, and Italian were angrily sharing the hashtag #chiudetelefabbriche (‘close the factories’) on twitter. Facing a rapid spread of the virus, Conte finally yielded to their demands.
