Who knows how many of those faces, thosse, which like never before, crowd the obituary pages of a local newspaper in an area greatly affected by the epidemic, the city of Bergamo, died alone, in isolation, without the caress of their families?
In a single day, Italy lost 349 people for a total of 2.158 victims of Covid-19. Yesterday, 368 victims. The day before 170…This is a war. How else can it be described? There is a video from Bergamo. There is a church near the local cemetery. where 40 coffins lie on the ground. There are videos of hospitals where so many old patients are supported by ventilators that doctors had to treat them in the corridors.
In some cemeteries in the North of Italy the burial places have run out and the crematoria are working 24 hours a day, with the number of deaths growing day by day.
Piero Taffo, who is in charge in Rome at Spallanzani’s Institute of “special burials”: “We have to go out with proper protection, suits, gowns, goggles, special masks. The approach to the deceased and his family has changed, and it’s going to depersonalize even that human aspect that you have to have, facing death”, he explains. “Very few people can participate. I have heard some colleagues from the North and they are telling me that in some cemeteries the places have run out and the crematoria are working 24 hours a day, with the number of deaths growing day by day”.
If the numbers don’t start falling, one crematorium won’t be enough, said the mayor of Bergamo Giorgio Gori. “We won’t be able to meet all the needs. Many corpses have been sent to other places for cremation. The crematorium of the city of Bergamo is not able to dispose of all the work it has to do; this is not to give particular unpleasant details but to make you understand the fatigue, the suffering. They are friends who die, acquaintances, colleagues”.
Excerpts from Giulio Meotti, 18/03/2020 for Arutz Sheva Israel, Italy at war with coronavirus.