MILAN – An Italian special court has dropped an investigation into whether the country’s former prime minister and former health minister caused unnecessary deaths not extend a restricted zone in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Ministerial Court in Brescia dismissed the case against ex-Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and ex-Health Minister Roberto Speranza on Wednesday.
The investigation Alleged mistakes were made when the “red zone”, initially imposed on only a limited number of towns in the northern Italian regions of Lombardy and Veneto, was not extended to neighboring Bergamo as deaths there skyrocketed.
Both officials stated that they acted according to the scientific knowledge and expert opinion available at the time.
Conte told state television RAI that the court’s decision “consoles me”.
“We were faced with a virus that was already galloping at that point, and within a few days we made the decision to close other regions in a very strict manner,” Conte said, adding that the court’s decision also made it clear that the government made a reasonable call based on the data available.
A court in Bergamo has yet to decide whether to indict more than a dozen other people. The Ministerial Court deals with cases involving Italian cabinet members.
The three-year investigation claims more than 4,000 deaths could have been prevented had the lockdown been extended on February 27, 2020 as Bergamo province became Italy’s COVID-19 hotspot.
The city’s morgue was so overwhelmed that the army had to send trucks to take coffins to other morgues for cremation.
On February 21, 2020, Italy became the first country outside of Asia to confirm a case of COVID-19.
The first “red zones” were imposed three days later in around ten cities in Lombardy and one in Veneto, and on March 8 were extended to all of Lombardy and 14 other provinces in the north. Two days later, Conte imposed a lockdown for the entire country.
Italy officially recorded 188,322 deaths from COVID-19.
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