However, Michele Usuelli, a doctor and regional councillor for the small, leftwing party, Più Europa, pins much of the blame on politics and healthcare mismanagement. Other theories include Lombardy’s close trade ties with China and the rest of the world, population density (the region has the largest number of residents in Italy), and high levels of pollution. For this reason, it will probably have to keep its borders closed as the rest of the country opens up for inter-regional travel from 3 June.īut the question of why the virus has been so lethal in Italy’s richest region while leaving others relatively unscathed is yet to yield any concrete answers. Even as the number of deaths and infections subside, Lombardy still glaringly stands out from the other 19 Italian regions in the daily figures.

By comparison, just next door in Piedmont and Veneto, the disease has killed 3,838 and 1,898 people, respectively, as of Thursday. “One of the most serious errors made was to only test those who had been in China or who had contact with Chinese people.”Ĭovid-19’s unfettered spread in Lombardy weeks before the first official case was confirmed, with the early suspicions from GPs allegedly ignored or dismissed by regional health authorities, is one explanation for the region becoming Italy’s ground zero.Ĭoronavirus has killed almost 16,000 people in Lombardy and infected more than 87,000 – the highest number per capita in Italy. “I fought for a long time to get her tested,” said Mussi.

His 64-year-old patient was hospitalised on 14 February, but it was only after Italy’s first locally transmitted case was confirmed in the Lombardy town of Codogno on 21 February that she was tested and found to have Covid-19. “When the illness didn’t pass we started to wonder whether it might be connected to coronavirus.” “We had cases of atypical bronchial pneumonia that didn’t respond to treatment,” Mussi told the Guardian.

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