Prosecutors in the northern Italian city of Bergamo have opened an investigation into the handling of the coronavirus outbreak there, Prosecutor Maria Cristina Rotta‘s office told CNN on Monday.
Bergamo is in Lombardy, the Italian province worst-hit by the coronavirus, and was among the first areas to be put under restrictions to try to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Bergamo citizen Luca Fusco, whose father died of coronavirus in March, started a Facebook group called “Noi Denunceremo” — meaning “we will denounce you” — to hold the authorities to account.
The group, which has 48,000 members, wants to ”ensure that the truth of what really happened gets out,” Fusco said.
We knew there was a problem, we saw the underestimation of the problem. We saw the cases in Codogno, we saw the cases in northern Italy, and no one was doing anything in the beginning,” Fusco said.
Separately, ANAAO, a doctors’ union, has lodged formal complaints to prosecutors in 10 regions over what it described as a shortage of personal protective equipment for healthcare staff.
“There’s a lack of adequate personal protective equipment for doctors exposed to Covid-19. The high number of infections is linked to the failure to supply FFP2 and FFP3 filter masks,” Carlo Palermo, national secretary of the ANAAO, told CNN on Monday.
So far, 150 doctors in Italy have died after contracting coronavirus, the Italian Association of Doctors said on Friday, adding that healthcare professionals constitute 10% of all infections.
