Lombardy is collapsing and the controversy with Rome breaks out. The alarm was raised by the Councilor for Welfare of the Lombardy Region Giulio Gallera: “We have very few free places in intensive care, we are now in the order of 15 or 20 available. Every day we get someone new, tomorrow 3 more are free and San Raffaele is creating an area with 14 places which will be ready in a week, however. Today we recover them by closing the operating rooms, where there are respirators that can also be used to support breathing".
The reason for the clash with the Civil Protection concerns the supply of masks: "We need masks of the fpp2 or fpp3 type or surgical ones and instead they sent us a handkerchief, a sheet of toilet paper, Scottex", denounced the councilor to Sky's microphones regarding the medical material sent by the National Civil Protection, arguing that the masks are not marked Cee. "I don't want to make a controversy - she added - but it is clear that it is not possible to imagine using these masks if you are assisting infected patients". At most, "a volunteer who uses them to carry groceries to an elderly person" could use them.
"In a little while we reach a point of no return – underlined Gallera – If every day we have 85 more people who enter intensive care and tend to leave two or three, because the figure is 10% and 15% considering who goes out and who dies, all this is not enough. It is difficult for everyone but, as we are making a great effort, we ask for the same intensity from everyone”. The head of Civil Protection Angelo Borrelli replied to Gallera's words, who spoke of "useless controversies", while the Minister for Autonomies Francesco Boccia made it clear that "Lombardy has received almost 550 thousand masks in recent days, between ffp2 and ffp3 and surgical ones. Those 'montrasio', object of the unjust and unpleasant criticism of Borrelli, are masks and not toilet paper: it is up to the individual regions to sort them according to the different uses. I prefer to talk about the 113 intensive pulmonary ventilators and the 103 sub-intensive ones, delivered or who will arrive in these hours".
An endless controversy, with the president of the Lombardy Region Attilio Fontana who retorted: "I am a very thin veil to clean the floor, I apologize it is not toilet paper because toilet paper with several layers is more solid than this mask". Meanwhile, the Pirellone appointed former head of civil protection Guido Bertolaso as emergency consultant, while to further reduce travel throughout Italy, in particular from north to south (with the controversies we know and which were re-proposed yesterday by the governor of Puglia Michele Emiliano), the stop to night trains has arrived.
