One of Italy’s top intensive care specialists said that government officials might have to reimpose lockdown measures if there is a second wave of coronavirus.
Dr. Maurizio Cecconi, head of intensive care at the Humanitas research hospital in Milan, was one of three Lombardy physicians who warned the rest of Europe to “get ready” for COVID-19 in the early days of the outbreak.
Recently, he said communities will have to “learn how to live” with the virus until there is a vaccine.
He said, “If there is an increase in transmission we need to be ready to slow down again, and maybe to put [in place] restrictive measures again.”
Dr. Cecconi, former Consultant and Honorary Reader in anesthesia and intensive care medicine at St George’s Hospital and University, thinks the National Health Service (NHS) paid close attention to the warnings. He also wrote an open letter with colleagues in Milan in March.
When asked about the response of the British government, he replied, “I would have been happy to see lockdown sooner in many countries.” The herd immunity strategy, which the government now denies having pursued despite the evidence, was a “dangerous approach.”
“As a society, when you don’t have a vaccine or a specific cure, you have to try to protect [vulnerable older] people from getting the infection,” he added.
Dr. Cecconi recalled that it was on February 20 when Lombardy doctors realized their healthcare system is under threat. “Just one single case made the health authorities in the region realize that there was a problem,” he recalled. “Something had slipped through the filter of contact tracing.”
“What was difficult for us was that we didn’t have the time to prepare,” Dr. Cecconi added. “Our ‘get ready’ message was trying to give those hours, those days that we didn’t have, to other people to prepare.” Italian officials have so far reported more than 234,000 confirmed cases, with over 33,680 deaths. Globally, the virus has sickened more than 6.7 million and killed over 393,000 people.
