In the press conference a few days ago, speaking of the Covid emergency, Mario Draghi he said verbatim: “Much of the problems we have today depend on the fact that there are unvaccinated people.” I find these claims incredible, worthy of a demagogue who hides his mistakes behind the construction of scapegoats. A shameful thing typical of indifferent rights.
For the avoidance of doubt, I have had three doses of the vaccine, work for the campaign to remove patents from vaccines, and generally try to get people to get vaccinated. In fact, I consider the vaccine very useful to reduce the damage of Covid, but it is quite clear that the vaccine alone can’t solve the problem. Covid cannot be fought as if it were a permanent emergency that only the “miracle” of the vaccine can solve. And that is exactly the mistake very heavy done by Draghi and his government in recent months: they focused everything only on the vaccine, they communicated that those who were vaccinated could return to “normality” and thus weakened the fight against the contagion they see in social distancing, in the means of individual protection, in avoiding situations of collective congestion decisive points in the fight against the virus.
The government did nothing to enhance local public transport and to redesign city times in order to reduce the dramatic impact that public transport has on virus spread. The government it claims to be against Dad nothing has done to reduce the number of pupils per class and in general to create a school capable of not becoming an amplifier of the pandemic. The government has done nothing for enhance public health and, in league with a large part of the regions, it is using the Covid syndemic for a further one privatization health care.
Not only has the government done nothing to remove vaccine patents so that even the poorest peoples can be vaccinated. The government has been the protagonist, together with the leadership of the European Union, in political action which prevented the patent moratorium. This government that speaks of vaccination obligation has heavily impeded the fact that the vaccine became a right for the entire world population, starting with the African peoples. After two years in which we are immersed in Covid, they continue to talk about an emergency while the problem is that the government – like other European governments – has not taken none of the structural measures that he had to hire to effectively fight Covid.
Why did they make this basic mistake? Because these liberalists who govern Europe operate solely to relaunch GDP and profits, to transfer resources to the richest and businesses while demagogically promising a return to normality which instead turns out to be a tragedy. In the face of his blatant failure, what is Draghi doing? Look for scapegoats.
While the Democratic Party and the 5 Stars govern with the Lega and Forza Italia, we are witnessing the birth of an unprecedented bipolarism in Italy: before it was the derby between Silvio Berlusconi and antiberlusconiani, now tra government and no vax. The world is upset by the pandemic but in Italy politics continues to be portrayed as a football match in which there are the good and the bad. Too bad that, while public opinion is called to take sides in this new crusade, to cheer on “our”, the government cuts taxes on the rich – and not the popular strata – and privatizes health care. In other words, this theatrical representation of the great clash between government and no vax only serves to avoid talking of the real problems of the country. The no vax movement is obviously wrong, but the Draghi government is certainly not the solution: it is the origin of the problem.
We need to get out of this Manichean scheme: politics is not a football match! We need to build an alternative that focuses on social justice, the revitalization of the public, from health to school to transport. An alternative in which the vaccine is a right for everyone, managed by the public and not by multinationals, and not a club to be used to justify one’s failures. The fight at Covid to win must convince through consistent and mirrored behaviors: this should do a government worthy of the name.