A year ago, the Italian city of Bergamo in the Lombardy region was the epicentre of Europe”s first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. On Thursday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi was in the city to mark the first-ever national day in memory of the victims of COVID-19.
On this day last year, the world witnessed images of coffins being transported away from Bergamo by military trucks. Footage of the army convoy snaking its way through Bergamo’s roads remains one of the most heart-wrenching and iconic images of the pandemic.
But there were many others. It joined the photo of an exhausted Cremona nurse collapsed on her computer keyboard after a shift, and more recently, an image of a Rome-area bistro owner sitting hunched over in her restaurant kitchen after the latest lockdown was imposed.
A year ago, Italy’s death toll from coronavirus reached nearly 3,000. Today, over 100,000 people in Italy have died from Covid-19. And the situation is still critical.
Admissions to intensive care units at hospitals in 13 regions have reached 30% of ICU capacity, which is the alarm threshold set by the Italian government. And that’s why for his first trip outside Rome, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi chose to visit Bergamo.
Watch the full report in the video player, above.
