How Covid-19 has been spreading in Italy

The first cases, in the most affected country by the coronavirus outside China, were two visitors from the Chinese town of Wuhan, the epicenter of the infection. 

The next day Italy became the first country to block all flights to and from China. But the virus was already spreading: a man known as "patient one", with severe flu-like symptoms, was only diagnosed  on the second visit hospital after 36 hours. He had had a dinner party and had gone running a marathon. Northern Italy was sealed off quickly.

Within a few day, exactly on March 11, the lockdown was extended to the entire country. Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, ordered all but most essential businesses to close until at least April the 3rd. The entire country, home to over than 60 million people, was, and still is, on lockdown. Italy became first democratic country since the second world war to impose a nationwide lockdown.

Meanwhile, other countries, such as Spain, Germany, and the UK, that would have learnt the lesson from Italian experience, allowed the virus to spread silently until the last week of March 2020.

On the one hand, we saw that some Italian hospitals and care centres for elderly people became the epicenters of transmission. On the other hand, Italy couldn't endorse the same approach as we saw in Japan and Singapore, because there weren't enough coronavirus detection testing kits to meet demand. Consequently, the high rate of asymptomatic cases complicated efforts to stop the spread of the infection, because many hospitals didn't test people who hadn't a fever and flu-like symptoms.

Now, in late March, it is not too late to act in the rest of Europe. Many lives can be saves, as Italy has become the symbol of the challenge facing the Europe's public health system.

ECB announces 750 billion Pandemic Emergence Purchase Programme (PEPP)

There isn’t any good news yet, as death toll are more than 3000 in the most affected country by the coronavirus outbreack outside China. Unfortunately, on  18 and 19 March, Italy reported the biggest daily jump in terms of coronavirus death since the contagion. And while Italians are sending optimistc messages from their windows, nearly 220,000 people have now been confirmed with the coronavirus infection globally.

Most countries around the world have been imposing Italian-style lockdown in bid to contain coronavirus outbreack.

As mentioned by WHO Director General, T.A. Ghebreyesus, this will be the first pandemic in history that could be controlled. Governments around the world have no choice but to ban on any movement and avoid contacts. All bars and shops have been closed, with the exception of grocery stores and pharmacies. From a global perspective, a steady recession is inevitable. Weakened demand caused by coronavirus outbreack has slowed down manifacturing activity. And This has led to weakened demand for oil causing prices to fall sharply.

Meanwhile, European Central Bank announces 750 billion Pandemic Emergence Purchase Programme (PEPP), which may help the process of normalizing as soon as coronavirus outbreack slows.

Thanks to all the people who are working for us in these difficult days. Thanks to doctors, nurses, food workers, delivery drivers, grocery clerks, police officers, firemen and all other people who are fighting for us. And last but not least, staying at home can make a huge contribution to fighting coronavirus outbreak.

Coronavirus outbreak data's reliability

While scientists around the world are scrambling to find a cure for patients with coronavirus outbreak, some experts say Chinese statistics are not reliable. People who are responsible for collecting data don't have the capabilities and don't have previous experience. In addition,  Chinese authorities overreport success and underreport failures. These are the raisons why it is difficult to understand the trend of the epidemic spreading.

Meanwhile, factories in China have closed, as workers have been sent home to contain coronavirus outbreak. And Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong have confirmed most coronavirus cases outside mainland China.

According to President Xi Jinping, the outbreak has highlighted weaknesses in China's response. Highest ranking communist party chief in China's Hubei province has been sacked because of failures to stem outbreak.

Since 2020 circumstances have changed

With regards to Scotland  independence referendum, a British Conservative polician, Michael Gove, recently said Scotland is disrespecting the 2014 referendum results, considering that Scottish people already held a referendum. Actually, as Mr. Gove mentioned, the 2014 independence referendum would be "once in a generation event", and Scotland agreed on this point. But since 2020 circumstances have changed because Scotland will be out of both the Single Market and the Custom union. In other words, Scottish people will be out of the EU against their will.

It is easy to see the 2016 Brexit referendum's results changed everything, and only 37% of the electorate voted leave or remain in the Single Market. In addition, not one person born in the XXI century voted in favour of leaving the EU.

Consequently, as it is known, the UK Constitutional principles, the international law, and the Self-determination principle gives the right to the Scottish people to hold another independence referendum, considering that since 2020 circumstances have changed.

That's the reason why if Mr. Michael Gove and his political followers continued to talk about the disrespect of the results of the 2014 Scottish referendum, people might get a wrong idea. 

The World cannot afford another war

It has been an unsettling first few days of a new decade from a geopolitical point of view, as the Iranian Revolution Guard commander, Qassem Solemaini, died in a US air strike on Friday, 3rd  January. Actually, tensions escalated after an Iranian-backed group  killed a US contractor on the Iraqi territory one week ago.

While the US President was trying to justify the killing, Iran promised retaliations and warned serious consequences. That's the reason why the US Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, said this action may trigger another endless war, exactly the kind of endless war that the President promised he would avoid.

At the moment the Middle East is home of more than 50,000 US soldiers, most located in Qatar. According to some experts, the Trump Administration do not understand that Iranian armed forces are not the same as we saw in the late 1970s during the Iran-Iraq war. In addition, Teheran could be able to trigger a war outside the Middle East Region, considering its good relationship with other powers located on the Asian Continent.

As mentioned by the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, the world cannot afford to have another war in the Middle East Region, considering that there are already  battlegroungs  in Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

It seems that the Trump Administration is going to make the same mistake that both President Bush and President Obana made before him. After the US had destroyed the two leaders in Iraq and Libya, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, they lost huge human resources and destabilized the two Islamic countries. 

Italy is compelled to generate 23 Billion by increasing taxes

This week Italy's Interior Minister, Mr. Salvini, is calling for early elections, while other parties are afraid of going to go to elections and loosing influence. From a political point of view, it is not time for elections in Italy, as the country needs to do an agreement with the EU and rebuild its political agenda. But it is also true that if a new government is not formed, Italian Parliament will be likely dissolved.  

The mainly problem of this political crisis is that many companies and strong economic powers, which have always backed Mr. Salvini from North-East Italy, now claim to be better heard from the government. Salvini's economic idea  is for growth of national product and measures which should encourage enterprises' productivity. But this couldn't be done without solving the problem at the moment of Italy's public debt, which is double than Germany and one fourth higher than France. Italy travels around 132% in terms of public debt/GDP ratio, and Salvini said this is not a problem. 

Salvini is the typical strong man that far right movements would like to see in power. Unfortunately, he is backed by economic powers which are interested in Federalism and Flat tax, and the Italian Prime Minister, Mr. Conte disagrees with these two points just mentioned. Flat tax means more money to the 10% richer and less money to the public budget. Consequently, Italian people would get less public services, such as healthcare, education, public transport, ect.  

Meanwhile, in order to comply with EU's deficit rules, Italy has vowed to the European Commission that it will be generating € 23 Billion by increasing sales taxes from the start of next year. There are no doubts that Italy needs a new stable government with the aim of helping to raise economic growth rate, create more jobs, and decrease public debt.

Protecting business with Iran

Since the US began to increase pressure on Iran, we have heard that the Rouhani regime has been passing  3.67% uranium stockpile limit permitted by 2015 nuclear deal. It is a very low level, which proves that Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon.

In this context, while the US is still imposing severe sanctions against Teheran, the Europeans should allow their companies to make business with Iran. Companies that want to import oil from Iran they have to be protected from the US.

According to international law, America can't interfere in the internal Europeans affairs, telling them who they can trade with, and who they cannot trade with. In addition, some calculations show that European economy is larger than US economy, and the European population is larger than US population. Consequently,  the EU has leverage on the Americans.

Meanwhile, after British Royal Marines had seized an Iranian oil tanker near Gibraltar, Iranian boats tried to impede a British oil tanker near the perilous strait of Hormuz.

Although the tension in the region is rising by the day, the US, UK and Iran say they don't want to escalate conflict.