What happens between Arcuri, commissioner for the Covid-19 emergency, and Bertolaso, already head of Civil Protection and from February 2 appointed head of the vaccination campaign in Lombardy. Facts, words and jabs
On the one hand there is Domenico Arcuri, extraordinary commissioner for the Covid-19 emergency chosen by the Conte Bis government and CEO of Invitalia. On the other hand, there is Guido Bertolaso, former head of Civil Protection, consultant for the Covid-19 emergency during the first pandemic phase in Lombardy, Marche, Sicily and Umbria, and from February 2 appointed head of the Lombardy vaccination campaign (a free title).
After the fall of the Conte government, there are those who hope that Guido Bertolaso can fill the role of Commissioner, taking care of the vaccination campaign of all Italians, while the two protagonists launch digs at a distance. BERTOLASO: THE NEW ASSIGNMENT AND THE PROMISES
Guido Bertolaso, called to organize the vaccination campaign in Lombardy, said: “I will not take a single euro to play my new role in Lombardy”.
And he added: “All Lombards will be vaccinated by the end of June”, openly challenging the work of Domenico Arcuri, who has in hand the organization of the Italian vaccination campaign. BERTOLASO AND THE LITTLE COLLABORATION FROM PALAZZO CHIGI
Bertolaso, in reality, specifies that there is no “political opposition” with the government, but that from Palazzo Chigi he received a two of spades at the request for collaboration.
Bertolaso, after receiving the phone call from Attilio Fontana, tried to hear Palazzo Chigi: “It came spontaneously for me to immediately call a series of my former colleagues general directors of the Prime Minister, to whom I asked two or three guys from my old team to have a hand ”in coordinating the vaccination campaign in Lombardy.
“I froze – added Bertolaso two days ago – when the answers I received were all identical: ‘Guido do not put us in difficulty, you are in opposition to the national government and therefore if we give you Tizio or Caio maybe he they take with us and hunt us’… I was very impressed. I reported to my interlocutors that the coronavirus is impartial, does not look at anyone and does not have party cards or belongs to coalitions of any kind. It is creating a series of problems for us ”. THE FRECCIATINA DI ARCURI
That in addition to Lombardy Bertolaso is also called to take care of the vaccination campaign throughout Italy
“I am not answering this question because I work, I do not judge”, Commissioner Domenico Arcuri replied, at a press conference, about the indiscretions that indicate Guido Bertolaso as his replacement.
Among other things, it was also Walter Ricciardi, advisor to the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, who hoped for Bertolaso’s involvement in organizing the vaccination campaign. BERTOLASO’S CRITICISM ON THE SECOND WAVE
And in fact, Bertolaso’s judgments on Arcuri’s work were not lacking.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like that. In the first wave we were timely, in the second they slept ”, commented Bertolaso in the middle of autumn. The Italians “today expected a formidable reaction from the government, a deployed army ready to fight the virus”, and instead “We let ourselves be overwhelmed again. For me it is a great bitterness “.
There is no shortage of digs directed at Arcuri. “I was baffled when I saw that the first calls were published in October,” Bertolaso said in an interview with La Verita. “I would not want the emergency commissioner to live in a different time zone than us. However, the problem is not Arcuri, but who put him in that chair ”, added the former head of the Civil Protection. RICCIARDI WANTS BERTOLASO AS THE NEW COMMISSIONER
Let’s now turn to the fans. Hoping for a change at the helm is the consultant of the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, Walter Ricciardi: “I’ve been repeating it for some time: we need to prepare, organize, consider all the Regions in the red band to prevent the spread of variants, especially the English one. And at the same time it is necessary to accelerate seriously with vaccinations, until today we have played at the oratory, now we need to be at the level of the Champions League. And we need a person who only takes care of this, 24 hours a day ”. Walter Ricciardi, professor at the Catholic University and advisor to the Ministry of Health warns: we have little time to stop the spread of variants of Sars-CoV-2.
And who is this person
“I am thinking of a figure who has technical, scientific and managerial skills. We need someone like Bertolaso. And a doctor, he has worked in the most difficult scenarios. If I had to name a name, I would like him, ”said Ricciardi.
The Arcuri management does not even like Fabrizio Pregliasco, virologist of the University of Milan, who speaking to Omnibus, on La7, has in fact reiterated that currently “there is a need to plan the vaccination campaign with the methods of Protection civil. With a systematic and capillary action that exploits everything: hospitals, territorial structures, but also an organization that involves the army “.
