“The pandemic has given us a network of relationships that one would like to fracture, disintegrate. Just read the news. Our country is torn between a present that still scares us and a future to build and deliver to our children and grandchildren while, as plastically illustrated on the front page of this newspaper a few days ago, we are often divided without any purpose. Have we failed? Are we failing? But come on! U
let’s get out of catastrophism and nihilism! Balance! Rational optimism! How much of it have we lost and how much, instead, we need, especially now. Responsibility for the future involves making political and social choices that simultaneously protect the elderly and create conditions to ensure a better fate for new generations.
We need clear, non-ideological choiceswhich provide certainty of protection for the present and the ability to preserve the future. Because nothing preventable and predictable can disrupt our lives, especially those we define as fragile and defenseless, energy and resources must be spent on the elderly, especially those with pathologies, and children. The best energies that have proven themselves in the field must be invested with responsibility in this direction”. This is what the director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health, Francesco Vaia, wrote in an editorial in ‘Il Riformista’.
“A few days ago – he recalls – I posted, on my social media, a photo of the beautiful work by Gian Lorenzo Bemini depicting Aeneas carrying his father Anchises on his shoulders and holding his son Ascanius by the hand. And in the following days the video of my visit to a great Italian of our time: Giulio Mogol, the author par excellence, the poet who made prevention a philosophy of life. Let us be guided by our Anchises and help the Ascanios to live in a better world – Vaia emphasizes – And then: the many Aeneas who populate our country and who occupy significant roles in the various fields of our society and who are not lacking in our institutions must come forward with courageto propose and become protagonists through the creation and implementation of programming and prevention plans in the sensitive segments that have demonstrated the greatest need for structural interventions: healthcare, schools, transport, the environment, digitalisation”.
“In short, let’s take up the ideas of yesterday, perhaps having today greater opportunities to make them concrete. What is necessary? To bring the country system into coherence and harmony, in a syndemic vision – replies Vaia – S
breast certainly the citizen to live with appropriate styles, which means really loving oneself, taking care of oneself, but the decision maker, who governs and who legislates, at any level, from the central government, to the regions, to the small municipality, must support and accompany these choices”.
“Science can reiterate, for example, that physical activity is good and prevents many diseases, that healthy lifestyles prevent 60% of chronic and chronic degenerative diseases and even 40% of tumors, thus also making a great contribution to the sustainability of the health system, but – underlines the director of Prevention of the Ministry of Health – this appeal risks remaining ineffective then faced with the concrete fact that in Italy as many as 6 out of 10 schools do not have gyms (Ambrosetti data). It will then be necessary for all institutions to work together, to improve and multiply the spaces of sociality available to children and also to adequately strengthen transportation, a weakness that we have been carrying with us for decades. We are trying to do our part”.
“In this regard, we have proposed a project for controlled mechanical ventilation in schools and, in the ‘Strategic operational plan for preparedness and response to a pandemic caused by respiratory pathogens with the highest pandemic potential 2024-2028’, which is almost ready – remember – the strengthening of the Prevention Department, which will have to deal with primary prevention in all schools starting with compulsory schools. Finally, let’s not complain about the excessive heat, because ‘the seasons are no longer what they used to be’, but let’s protect and enhance the environment instead. Let’s avoid that the degradation continues and worsens even more, especially in large cities, and therefore worsens the quality of our life”.
“Let’s focus more on the triptych innovation, training, knowledge – urges Vaia – but without it remaining pure exhortation. Let’s create greater social balance. I repeat: balance. We need this so much. Let’s go beyond fragility, still highlighted today as a painful inevitability. Let’s transform it into potential. Not a problem, but a resource. Let’s be guided by our Anchises and help our Ascanios to live in a better world. We can do it, and we will succeed, provided that we all move in the same direction”, he concludes.
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