By In Trieste
Journalism festival Link held today in Piazza Unità saw our region’s president Fedriga talking about the future of Italy with the renowned reporter from Rai 1, Serena Bortone.
Serena Bortone: Let’s start by looking back on the lockdown and how you handled it. Do you think there might be another one?
Fedriga: It’s not yet clear how the pandemic will evolve. We began closing everything down back in February before we had any cases here in Friuli Venezia Giulia. Veneto, which was one of the epicenters at the time, is our bordering region so we were worried. However, now the situation is different and there are not a lot of hospitalized patients.
SB: Looking at France and Spain’s numbers where there seems to be an imminent second lockdown, in comparison Italy is doing much better. How would you explain that?
F: I think the fact that we have less cases is first of all thanks to Italians who behaved well. I can confidently say that most Friuli Venezia Giulia residents abode by the rules and that’s why we’re here today. Probably the success of Italy can be explained by the fact that all Italians understood that they had to work together. If the population doesn’t share the opinion of the government, failure is inevitable.
SB: How do you think the Italian government handled the pandemic at the beginning?
F: The government made the right choices but the error was the timing. Some decisions had to have been made before.
SB: The new Italian decree is out on Wednesday. What do you think about it?
F: It is important to give the population clear guidelines. By now most understand that it is a collective battle.
SB: What’s in the future for Italy?
F: It is impossible to make any long-term guesses at this point. Each and everyone has to be responsible for their actions – wash hands, wear a mask and maintain social distancing.
SB: True.
F: The future will bring more automatization. For example, a Covid-positive patient will receive a card and a small scanner. They’ll be able to scan the card daily and send their data (temperature, general symptoms) to their general practitioner who will know how to proceed.
SB: Focus of 2021?
F: I can’t make any predictions now. The future is uncertain but we will make the best of it.
