With around 40% of preferences, science journalist Roberta Villa has outperformed the competition and is elected by readers mi tomorrow “Milan 2021”, this year’s prize dedicated to the memory of Martina Loni: “Reporting the epidemic is a great responsibility: it does not seem clear to everyone”

Roberta Villa Milanese 2021

“I wasn’t expecting it looking at the other candidates, but I think socialization favored me because many on social networks like me.” Roberta Villa, a science journalist for over thirty years, first nominated and then elected Mi-Tomorrow readers as “Milanese of 2021”, sometimes sparkles by voting on our official channels.

Between Giorgio Armani and Filippo Torto, Stefano Boeri and Gino Strada with Emergency, Moto Socorso Milano and Alcatraz, Villa beat the competition with 39.56% of the favourite. Undoubtedly, thanks to the way in which, in these two years, more than 200 thousand followers on Instagram meticulously and cleverly reported about the sudden development of the Covid epidemic: “But it was not always easy.”

Two years, Roberta.
“I am exhausted. And when I see my pictures of two years ago, among other things, I started with a broken knee in the emergency room in Livigno, I think I am twenty years old. But I am content to see that so many depend on what I explain.”

More gratification or more responsibility?
“I also experience it as a sense of responsibility. A day without a story and I feel so guilty about others. A personal bond is established, although I can’t answer everyone. But I realize that sometimes just half a word is enough to calm people down.”

What fascinated you most in these two years?
“As for the virus, I was honestly convinced that this winter we will only have a tail. Omicron took me from the back, although we knew it logically. Also, from a communication point of view, if you have a more serious variant, it is easier for people to understand, but Saying that you have a variant that is more contagious but less dangerous becomes absurd. In this, then, those “experts” who have begun to follow their very personal narrative do not help much.”

Are you speaking at an institutional level?
“Also. There is no strategy, now we are trying to work with the charts, but the basics are missing. In addition to the real speaker.”

Isn’t there a Brusaferro?
«Yes, but there are also Speranza, Sileri, Locatelli, Ricciardi, La Zampa … it becomes difficult to give a definite and always relevant image. In my time with the Fake News Task Force during Conti 2, we agreed that there should be only one reference site for the latest news on the pandemic. Because every institution has its own site and everything becomes more and more confusing.”

Confusion as usual.
“Confusion is the evil of Italy, because it was born of unwillingness to take responsibility. However, in Conte’s period as now with Draghi, I find a form of fatherhood that you cannot accept in 2022 ».

Draghi also talks a little.
“The fact that he did not speak after the last decree is inexcusable, then apologize, but if you think it is not necessary to explain it, then problem becomes number one.”

That’s why they write to you.
They also sent me pictures of the vaccinations, after the same doctors advised them not to. The fear that spreads in the patient after the doctor advised him not to vaccinate is certainly not fanatical.”

So they don’t even write to you.
“In many. And in general, I have this strategy: when it is a public message in my profiles, I always try to extract the content from the provocation. My answer takes into account only the cause of the disagreement. Of course, if the insult comes, I warn him and then they block him, but this does not It never happens. Also because many seek confrontation in order to test their beliefs. Sometimes they “melt” in private. And I feel that something I say stays in the end.’

A year ago, in the midst of a protracted red zone and a lack of vaccinations, the daughter of one of your followers called you a “sedative.”
We met in person! One of the things I regret the most is that in recent months I have been less of a sedative and then I don’t like being reassured at any cost. I want people to decide for themselves, not to obey orders. Also because otherwise they don’t develop the tools to make independent decisions later. Sometimes in stories I do tests … ».

or?
“Based on the news that arrives, I’m trying to put them to the test a little bit to see if what I’m explaining has taken hold.”

Is the duty of vaccination true for those over the fifties?
“Certainly not now. We are facing a wave that somehow cannot be changed as we cross our fifties and who will now be vaccinated. Hence commitment, in effect, risks becoming a step back in the way of individuals’ consciousness. Citizens and patients should always be encouraged to make informed and free decisions.”

Is there a country better at managing the epidemic?
“There is no perfect example. Good examples are also good in very different circumstances than ours. New Zealand, for example, starts from a state of coherence not found anywhere else. They have followed a zero Covid strategy, as in Japan, but it is not a viable model.” applicable easily to us, both to the social structure and to the demographic situation. Then there is an inescapable economic question: China can do it, and Italy cannot.”

And among European countries?
“Portugal is a model country in Europe. He started organizing the irregular system so it could be traced, then handed out tests to everyone, vaccinated nearly 100% of those eligible, and now he’s keeping a new wave in check. Sure, it’s small. The UK did well to take the tests for free. Norway has had quite a few casualties, but I find it hard to compare it to us. And then communication is very important: Angela Merkel has always communicated in an honest, scientific way. She is also sympathetic. But, as you can see, even rich and orderly Germany, which has extensive treatments, has certainly not experienced a walk in the park.”

After two years, what makes you calmer and more agitated?
“I am absolutely confident. I’m quiet about what everyone is bothering about: I don’t think the anti-extremist force is that strong. I don’t think they are even responsible for this situation. Certainly there is the problem of the burden on the hospital, but there is also a percentage of people who have been vaccinated who are hospitalized. This persistent stigma does not help people change their minds. And I’m not worried about the decline in the effectiveness of vaccines either: I am confident that more effective vaccines will arrive.”

Pan-coronavirus vaccine?
“I believe that”.

How will it work?
“Instead of stimulating a very specific molecule of the virus, it tries to direct the response against more ‘conserved’ parts of Covid.”

What makes you more irritated instead?
“Our fatigue is without a doubt. It leads everyone to say that Omicron is like a cold, the classic behavior that favors the spread of the virus. With fatigue we let it spread too much. And the more circulated, the greater the differences.”

More contagious than Omicron?
“They are no longer contagious, but maybe they come back to insist more on the lungs. It could be anything, really. Moreover, we were not yet clear about the damage it does to the lungs from the outside. Now there is an increased risk of developing diabetes in children, not to mention ‘long Covid’. And the omicron itself, however, affects the lungs less and goes to other tissues ».

The question they ask you the most today?
Always the same: When do you end? Even if today takes other forms: they ask me when Covid will become endemic, for example. Viruses don’t improve by definition.

So if it’s more contagious, doesn’t that mean it’s “better” adapting to our bodies?
“No. The virus reproduces randomly. Every now and then the combination comes up with a meaning that makes it less suitable for being in the environment and disappears, but it can make it more competitive: so it spreads, until it takes over the other variables. But the virus doesn’t care how dangerous it is to humans: the virus He just wants to repeat himself.”

So we will continue to vaccinate without stopping.
“No. We can’t think of vaccinating everyone every three to four months, even for an immune system that tends to lose its cohesion. That is why we are working tirelessly on increasingly effective vaccines.”

Two years of the pandemic in Lombardy: your opinion?
“We are still at the starting point. Family doctors are desperate because nothing has changed and cases multiply, then they can’t follow up on other chronic patients. The problem of Lombard health in the least has not been addressed. The only positive aspect I feel I realize is about the vaccination campaign: No matter how it started, I don’t think there is much to say now.”

How do you see tomorrow?
«It seems the sun has risen, a joke but not much. I understand how hard it is to live for today, but I think we have to maintain a very high level of resilience. And that’s what Omicron taught us: Evolution teaches us that those who are best suited to the conditions survive. I wouldn’t rule out staying in the masks and spacers for a few years. At this point, we have to modify our way of life a little by finding alternative solutions that allow us to regain our social activities, but without returning to the world to which we are accustomed. We must do everything we can so that the “after” has its positive aspects.

What will Milan look like tomorrow?
“It would be nice if it were just a file MilanIncessantly germinating ideas, new paradigms of evening entertainment were born. It’s not that Milan has lost its attractiveness, but that he will be able to maintain it if he does not deny the reality. Putting your head in the sand becomes the best way to cut it.”

Milan overall, Roberta Villa won: standings

1. Villa Roberta 39.56%
2. Milanopelladio 19.78%
3. Mattia Villardita 19.32%
4. Lorenzo Citrio, Alcatraz 8.62%
5. Milan Aid Mortgage 5.37%
6. Emergency in memory of Gino Strada 2.79%
7. Giorgio Armani 2.25%
8. Donksstrada 1.20%
9. Filippo Tortue 0.77%
10. Stefano Boeri 0.33%

Source: 11,676 total preferences collected on mitomorrow.it