The old Italian bias goes against COVID

From his news at the foot of two hilly streets Rome, Armando Alviti has been distributing newspapers, magazines and goodwill to the locals from before morning until after dark almost every day for more than half a century.

Since turning 18, Alviti has been working on the newsstand seven days a week, with a woolen cloth cap to protect it from the winter humidity of the Italian capital and a table fan for cooling through the harsh summers . Thus came a powerful battle with the arrival of the coronavirus Italy and his two growing sons asked Alviti, who is 71 and a diabetic, to stay at home while taking turns pulling their own work until the new news keep it open.

“They were afraid I was going to die. I know they love me crazy,” Alviti said.

Italy’s average dead age of Covid-19 has reached around 80, many of them with people with medical conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. Some politicians advocated limiting the time elders spent outside their homes to avoid locks of the general population that were costly to the economy.

Among them was Governor Giovanni Toti, 52, of Liguria, where 28.5 percent of the population is 65 or older. Seann there are people “for the most part retirement, which is not essential to the productive effort “of the Italian economy,” said Toti. They made me very angry. “” Old people are the life of this country. They are a reminder of this country, “he said. Older self – employed adults like him in particular” cannot be kept under a bell jar, “he said.

Product vendor Domenico Zoccoli, 80, also dismisses the notion that people beyond retirement age do not have to “protect product (and).”

according to Eurostat, the bureau of statistics of the European Union, 35% of Italians over the age of 65 look after grandchildren several times a week. AP