During February of 2020, a tragedy began that struck, as the first Western nation, Italy, and then went on to devastate the rest of world—the Covid-19 pandemic. So many images come to mind at the mere mention of this terrible virus, but one, above all, mercilessly describes those moments, symptomatic of a wound that will indelibly remain sealed in our collective consciousness—the coffins squeezed to capacity into military trucks in Bergamo. The whole area around the city of Bergamo was truly put to the test, there isn’t one family that wasn’t struck by the virus, the sound of ambulance sirens blared more than in any other city and the fear was so tangible that you could see it in the eyes of the inhabitants. However, this story is not about the hospital itself but about the people who promised, working day and night, that this miracle would come to pass. 7 days and, thanks to the Alpini, Bergamo can finally breathe again.
During February of 2020, a tragedy began that struck, as the first Western nation, Italy, and then went on to devastate the rest of world—the Covid-19 pandemic. So many images come to mind at the mere mention of this terrible virus, but one, above all, mercilessly describes those moments, symptomatic of a wound that will indelibly remain sealed in our collective consciousness—the coffins squeezed to capacity into military trucks in Bergamo. The whole area around the city of Bergamo was truly put to the test, there isn’t one family that wasn’t struck by the virus, the sound of ambulance sirens blared more than in any other city and the fear was so tangible that you could see it in the eyes of the inhabitants. However, this story is not about the hospital itself but about the people who promised, working day and night, that this miracle would come to pass. 7 days and, thanks to the Alpini, Bergamo can finally breathe again.
In a country where bella figura is a national pastime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the maestro of media manipulation. Having risen to political primacy with the aid of his Mediaset empire, he now controls 90% of the bel paese’s television channels including the state-run RAI network. Quantity, it seems, does not equal quality. Fed on a diet of semi-naked dancing girls, inane competitions and rickety reality shows built around the most ridiculous of premises, is it any wonder that Italians are becoming a nation of fame-hungry wannabes?
