How Italy Snatched Health From the Jaws of Death

A man walks past a large billboard showing a woman wearing Italy’s national flag as a face mask and the headline “All together, without fear,” in Naples, Italy, on March 22. Carlo Hermann/AFP/Getty Images

In January this year, COVID-19 struck Italy, the first European stop on the virus’s deadly journey around the world. “Italy’s Health Care System Groans Under Coronavirus,” the New York Times wrote in March, while Germany’s Bild described macabre processions of military trucks delivering the COVID-19 dead to cemeteries. The global shock over Italy’s tragic fate betrayed a sense of superiority: The disorganized Italians were mishandling the crisis, sure, but the rest of us would know what to do.

Half a year later, the Italians have not only managed to get their infection rate down to the level of Europe’s star performers like Germany and Finland, but have achieved low fatality rates comparable to the Germans and Finns too.