Marco Bresolin is a Brussels-based EU correspondent for the Italian newspaper La Stampa.
On Wednesday night, I sent an email to the school in Brussels my son goes to. He would no longer be attending, I wrote, because the coronavirus epidemic had gotten so bad that it was time to take serious steps in order to contain it. Having spent the previous week watching the virus burn across my native Italy, I wanted to do everything in my power to prevent the same thing from happening here.
The next morning, I received an email from the school. It informed me that the apéro en classe — a happy hour for parents — was confirmed for Friday, April 3, but that “since we will be about 50 people we will meet in the gymnasium because it is bigger.”
For Italians in Brussels, it can sometimes feel like we’re living through a horror movie. We know how the film will end, but we can only watch in terror as it plays out.
Even as Italy shuts down its shops and restaurants and puts strict limits on travel, Belgium is doing little to combat the epidemic, only issuing a recommendation against holding indoor events with more than 1,000 people.
The terrible thing is that it’s not difficult to understand the Belgian position.
While I was writing the email to my school, I received a call from an Italian official at the European Commission: “Marco, how are you? What do you think about all this? What are you doing? What can we do?”
It’s an exchange I’ve had over and over with other Italians living in Brussels — colleagues, diplomats, friends: “What can we do to make the Belgians and all the Europeans in the bubble open their eyes?”
Italian doctors in Belgium have called on authorities to learn from the Italian experience, and Italian parents have enthusiastically circulated a petition calling on the government to shut down the schools.
The terrible thing is that it’s not difficult to understand the Belgian position. I only opened my eyes myself over the weekend, as the Italian government put my country on lockdown. And I opened them as wide as they go Monday when I read an incredible interview with an emergency room doctor in Bergamo in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Italy has increased lockdown measures across the country over the coronavirus | Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images
He described shortages of beds and equipment — not because the hospital is underfunded or deficient, but because of the incredible number of patients. The situation has become so critical, he said, that medical workers have been forced to choose who gets critical care and who is left to recover on their own — or die.
The health care infrastructure in Lombardy, the richest region in Italy, is among the best in the world. And yet, it is buckling under the strain.
Bergamo is where I grew up. My family lives there. But even my mother did not understand the seriousness of the situation until a few days ago. She only realized how bad things have gotten when she noticed an increase in the pages dedicated to obituaries in the local newspaper.
Two weeks ago, there were, on average, two or three pages. On March 12, there were nine. “Tomorrow there will be eleven pages — a record,” a colleague who works at the paper told me.
The people who fill those pages died because of coronavirus. Or they died because they suffered from different pathologies aggravated by coronavirus. Or they died form other causes for which they were not able to receive the necessary treatment because of the pressure coronavirus has put on hospitals. If not for the virus, they would all still be alive.
On Wednesday, the virus killed 196 people in Italy. The day before it was 168. About 70 percent of these deaths happened in Lombardy.
It’s amazing that Brussels — a place that has proved itself able to head off crises — has not yet opened its eyes.
In Brussels, Italians are often seen as wily and prone to melodrama — especially if it helps them escape the rules or get what they want. It’s a reputation, I have to admit, that we partly deserve. But not in this case.
As the Brussels correspondent for the Italian newspaper La Stampa, I spend my days trying to explain the European Union to my country. The EU, I try to make them understand, is not the uncaring, bureaucratic machine it is so often depicted to be.
Today, I find myself fighting a similar battle, in the opposite direction. It’s amazing that Brussels — a place that has proved itself able to head off crises — has not yet opened its eyes. Some of those reading this article will think that I’m a typical alarmist Italian. I really hope they are right.