COVID-19: Vaccine rollout begins in Italian city where coronavirus crisis shocked the world
By: Tshos Hoahmed
Tags: Vaccines, World, Covid 19, Rollout, Italian

COVID-19: Vaccine rollout begins in Italian city where coronavirus crisis shocked the world

The vaccination photo opportunities are a far cry from the near chaos that engulfed the hospital and shocked the world in March. Tshos Hoahmed Dec 27, 2020·4 min read

Flanked by a police escort, a paramedic emergency vehicle, its hazard lights flashing, speeds through town towards the main hospital.

An emergency Christmas delivery handed to medical staff.

A small green refrigerated bag then hurried inside the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital, followed by two police officers.

The COVID-19 vaccine has arrived in the northern Italian city of Bergamo.

This city, which was devastated by the pandemic, can learn to breathe again.

Image:Earlier this year, Dr Roberto Cosentini oversaw what looked like a warzone without bombs and bullets

It is early days of course, but the vaccination process has begun.

The symbolic first dose given to the city’s head of doctors Guido Marinoni — looking after patients and the most vulnerable, as well as their medical carers — is a priority here.

The vaccination photo opportunities are a far cry from the near chaos that engulfed the emergency rooms of the hospital and shocked the world in March.

As a team, covered head to toe in PPE, we had absolutely no idea what to expect.

Back then, nobody knew anything really and nobody had seen emergency rooms and intensive care units with patients lined up connected to ventilators, slowly dying in front of our eyes.

Back then if you were unfortunate enough to be admitted to the ICU, you had, at best, a 50/50 chance of survival.

I remember working that out in our car, having read the daily and weekly mortality figures published by the Italian health ministry.

That was then. The world has now been completely enveloped by the virus, and the world is fighting back.

Image:The vaccine was handed to medics at Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo

After the most difficult 10 months in medical living memory, the frontline staff who have fought and survived can relish the future.

They are exhausted for sure. But they can now see the light. For so, so long there was nothing but darkness.

Constant shifts. Constant death. Constant feelings of personal failure.

“Now we realise that maybe we are not enough,” Lorenzo Grazioli, an intensive care anaesthetist, told me at the time. It scared the hell out of me.

Outside I remember just talking to myself.

Basically, in despair, I said if a hospital as rich and well-resourced as the Papa Giovanni is overrun — what happens to the world, what happens to the UK? I had never felt so utterly helpless and scared for everyone I knew.

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