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Comment by toyg | Hacker News Reader

* Health services in Italy are entirely controlled at the regional level

* The two worst-hit regions (Lombardia and Veneto) are ruled by right-wing coalitions

* Not even the administrations of those regions, who should be politically on the same page, can agree on what to do / what should have been done

* Prato in Toscana, the "unofficial Chinese capital of Italy", has seen no cases whatsoever.

But sure, let's use a worldwide pandemic to throw around some casual racism - like the rest of Europe is doing against "dirty Italians" right now.

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I don't think pointing out business connections between individuals belonging to particular nation states is an example of "casual racism". It's no kind of racism at all.

But the rest of the information you provided is very interesting! That the "Chinese capital" of Italy has no cases is very interesting, in particular.

> It's no kind of racism at all.

The political situation in Italy has been an absolute powder-keg of not-even-casual racism for years now, not unlike some areas of the UK. The "political boss" of those two regional administrations I mentioned, Matteo Salvini of Lega Nord, tried to scapegoat Asian communities pretty brutally at the onset of the epidemic, with the usual result (Asian-looking people being shouted at in the streets etc).

We now know that the European "patient 0" was likely from Germany, so these right-wingers were left with egg on their faces and are now running around like headless chickens - just yesterday Lombardia asked for more rigorous lockdown measures, whereas Veneto was asking for the opposite. So I get pretty pissed off at the strenuous attempts to go back to the original talking points about discrimination of entire ethnic groups, particularly when Italians abroad (a category that includes me) have to suffer the same idiotic attitudes at the moment.

> so these right-wingers were left with egg on their faces

You could say the same of the left-wing, that promoted for weeks a reckless attitude, pushing the message that we just needed to do business as usual, and to "overcome the fear".

The secretary of the most prominent left-wing party, Zingaretti is now infected. About two weeks ago was posting picture of him drinking at a bar with other people. On top of the picture he wrote: "Our slogan is: normality. [...] Our economy is stronger than fear: let's go out and drink an aperitif, a coffee or have a pizza".

While I wish him a speedy recovery, it's undeniable the left wing downplayed the risks.

I do not disagree (most governments outside China have failed, including US, UK, Australia, Germany etc), but at least they did not spread hate.

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