General Francesco Figliuolo leaves on April 1, passing from the war to Covid to the real one. The emergency commissioner returns full-time to his role, that of Joint Chief Operating Officer who coordinates, plans and directs the operations of the nearly 10 thousand Italian soldiers engaged in missions abroad.
But who will take his place and, above all, which structure will deal with the pandemic? Last Thursday's decree law defines the exit strategy from the emergency: in article 2 we read that instead of the commissioner structure, the Unit will arrive for the completion of the vaccination campaign and for the adoption of other measures to combat the pandemic. It will operate for nine months, until 31 December 2022, before leaving all duties to the Ministry of Health.
The Director of the Unit - who will in any case act with the powers attributed to the Extraordinary Commissioner - will be indicated shortly by a decree of the Prime Minister. Probably another general: among the papables Maurizio riccò, current logistic commander of the Army, who will be flanked by a deputy director to be chosen from among the leaders of the Ministry of Health.
It was a complicated 13 months for the Lucan general. Begun with a frantic search for vaccines that were initially difficult to have available, he closed the assignment with over 135 million doses administered: 49.7 million Italians have completed the primary cycle (83.9% of the total population), 38.6 million (65.2%) got the third dose. There are still 4,490,000 unvaccinated Italians missing, a hard core still difficult to scratch.
It is still too early to return to the ordinary, was the Government's reasoning. Indeed, it is necessary "to continue to have, even after the date of 31 March 2022 (that of the end of the emergency, ed), a structure with adequate capacity to respond to possible worsening of the national epidemiological context". Hence the temporary unit, which will have a leaner staff than the Figliuolo structure, also due to the drop in demand for vaccines.
(Unioneonline / L)
