The government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte won the vote of confidence in Parliament two days ago, although in the Senate it must settle for a relative majority, but it did not have time to celebrate because it already sees a new risk of succumbing coming.
In Italy there is a climate of political instability marked by continuous negotiations to consolidate the center-left government favoring the incorporation of senators from the political center.
“There is a week to save him,” he headlined this Thursday morning. Next week, Minister Alfonso Bonafede must defend the new law on the state of Justice in parliamentary committees.
“We will vote against,” warned former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, leader of Italia Viva, who withdrew from the ruling majority last week, sparking the crisis. Renzi’s deputies and senators did not vote against, but abstained in the vote of confidence.
As the government in the Senate is supported by a relative majority, if Renzi’s party joins the votes of the center-right opposition, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will lose the vote and could resign his position, unleashing a new crisis.
Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi removed support from the Conte government and precipitated the political crisis. Photo: EFE
A feverish negotiation has been unleashed to attract centrist senators from liberal groups and dissidents from parties that are in the mixed group into the ranks of the center-left government. The government won 156 votes in the vote of confidence. The absolute majority is 161, but for Prime Minister Conte to feel saved, a level of 167-170 senators should be guaranteed to contrast the right-wing opposition and Renzi supporters in the Upper House.
Fear of the third wave of the pandemic
The political sphere, on the other hand, must make the accounts with a negative general situation due to the insistent spread of the coronavirus that this Thursday registered 14,078 infections and 521 deaths. Indicators show that 84,102 people have died since the beginning of the pandemic, on February 21.
The pandemic seems to have entered Italy on a plateau with a high number of infected and dead, which evoke the numerous popular transgressions that took place in the country during the end of the year holidays.
The health system maintains control of inmates in hospitals and intensive care within the margins of safety.
Milan police patrol the streets and squares to monitor compliance with restrictions against the coronavirus. Photo: EFE
But the general situation in neighboring countries, such as Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain and others with fewer inhabitants but important figures for the virus, show that, as most Italian scientists and technicians think, between the end of this month and February the so-called third wave will be inevitable, which in the last two weeks has devastated Great Britain and Germany due to outbreaks of “variants” of the virus of English, South African and Brazilian origin that have a great contagion capacity.
The United Kingdom and Germany registered record figures of between 1,600 and 1,800 deaths per day, with infections that reached more than 30 thousand cases. London and Berlin have proclaimed rigid quarantines until February with an “all closure” that aims to contain the spread of the new mutant Covid-19 viruses.
Great Britain has become the country with the most deaths in relation to the number of inhabitants, close to 93 thousand deaths. Italy had that sad primacy in the first phase of the epidemic, between February and May.
Italians do aprontes throughout the hospital system preparing for the onslaught of the third wave. The latest measures to contain it have managed to moderate the spread of the second wave of the pandemic, but there are regions such as Lombardy, the most developed and most populated in the country, with the capital in Milan, which has protested to the administrative authorities arguing that the “red quarantine ”Is an excessive punishment.
Many scientists and the Gimbe Foundation, which monitors the epidemic, argue, on the contrary, that the government should leave the subtleties of the “yellow”, “orange” and “red” zones, depending on the risk levels shown by the indicators, and immediately declare a rigid nationwide quarantine for at least one month.
A resident of a nursing home in Rome receives the coronavirus vaccine this Wednesday. Photo: AP
The vaccination plan is stopped
The feeling that a new outbreak of the virus is almost inevitable Thanks to the variants discovered in the last weeks, popular sentiments have been mixed with confusion over the slowdown of the vaccination plan that was working at a positive rate, with more than one and a half million inoculations as of Wednesday.
But the announcement of the Pfizer laboratory that it decreased 30% of the weekly deliveries of 470 thousand doses due to production problems, has put momentarily in crisis to the system.
Most Italian regions have decided to stop the vaccination of new patients to have a reserve dose for those who have already received the first vaccine and must be inoculated with a second dose to ensure immunity.
Pfizer announced this Thursday that deliveries will be regularized next week and that shipments will even increase from March.
For two days, the reservations of places for those over 80 years of age have been interrupted in order to be vaccinated, which add up to 4.4 million people and are designated to be inoculated after health personnel.
Italy expects in the boreal summer, between June and August, to complete the vaccinations of 70% of adult patients. The purpose is conditioned on how the vaccine supply will work, plus the arrival and severity of the dreaded third wave of the corona virus.
Rome, correspondent
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