January 22 – that is 28 days before the Codogno case – the Ministry of Health writes, and therefore knows, that the health personnel who will have to deal with Covid-19 cases, in addition to adopting standard biosecurity measures, will have to wear a protective mask appropriate. On February 4, the doctors wrote to the authorities asking for supplies of safety protections for health workers. Supplies remain a dead letter. A full-blown epidemic only the health circuit of Lombardy needs 1.1 million masks per day, Emilia Romagna 500,000, Veneto 600,000. 90 million are needed every month in Italy.
Suppliers run out of inventory and pay out of their own pockets
The first forced to move Lombardy. As of February 20-21, only a few supplies to hospitals manage to arrive from the historical suppliers who had won the tenders and had stocks in the warehouse, the others take place in emergencies such as that of the Crespi Enterprise. The Ffp3 masks, the best on the market, are sold for € 3.39, but those arrived from China in January by their manufacturer in Wuhan, and ordered a month and a half earlier, cost 9.6. Then nothing more. In the same situation, suppliers from Emilia Romagna: they bought in China from companies that produced according to European quality standards, but since January they no longer deliver. As it turns out, while stocks last, no one has applied price increases. In Veneto, Medline hijacks everything only on Venetian health by applying the same auction prices as two years ago. Meanwhile, the epidemic is spreading and suppliers are looking for other markets. Comitec, which supplies Emilia Romagna and Marche, turns to Turkey and orders millions of pieces certified to Edge Mask: the Ffp2s that previously sold at 65 cents, go up to 2.50 euros, the Ffp3s go from 1 euro to 4.35 . Delivered the first batch of 200,000 and paid out € 670,000, Erdogan blocks them on March 5 at the Ankara customs. The exploration of Prime Minister Conte is of no use. The company has lost the money, fine. Lombardy has 500,000 pieces stuck in Mumbai (India), and 100,000 in Emilia Romagna. To provide for the whole territory in charge of national civil protection, through Consip with international call: as of March 24, the pieces distributed to the Regions do not reach 30% of the real needs.
The parallel market of intermediaries
In this dramatic search for the main protection against contagion for healthcare workers, essential workers and citizens, brokers and companies flourish and improvise as intermediaries. Silvia Orzi, director of the hospital purchasing service for Emilia Romagna says: At this point we started to deal with everyone, from tile sellers to steel sellers, who say they have personal contacts with China or other countries, and we exclude who does not give us enough guarantees. We provide a letter of credit and pay on delivery, but the first orders have never arrived, so in some cases we anticipate 10% by bank transfer, in the end something arrives, but in reduced terms compared to the promised one.
Stolen, blocked, lost around the world
The first contract of the last week of February with Med 24 in Bologna, which promises 2 million surgical masks from Brazil at 40 cents including VAT. The order starts on February 26th: 50% payment on delivery and 60 days balance. The masks make a stop in Bangkok, to release them the foreign ministry intervenes. They leave for Italy via London. And there they stop at a warehouse in the city. Med 24 asked: There are problems with transport. They negotiated with the BMC of Modena which markets metals, delivery after a week and payment in seven days. In the end they write that the load remains in Shanghai because the Chinese want cash payment. Linea Agri is proposed (sells online): on March 13, 100,000 surgical masks and 539 protective suits were ordered. The email arrives on 23 March: Unfortunately the goods were stolen from us before arriving in Italy. We apologize for the inconvenience. The International Pharmaceutical of Gravellona Toce imports drugs, now also masks through their wholesaler. Order one million pieces, Ffp2 with valve, cost 7.40 euros each. A 60,000 batch arrived the first week of March, then nothing more. The cargo was stopped first in Dubai and then in Canada. Customs began to block because fake and non-certified brands were running – they say – but they should arrive in Italy on March 30th.
From the production of tiles to the masks
At the central purchasing department in Parma, via WhatsApp, it proposes a few million Ffp2 masks Ettore Ricchi from Maranello, a ceramic seller in China: $ 2.8 each, plus transportation costs, to be quantified, advance transfer. The dialogue stops immediately. Ricchi claims to have already purchased 200,000, which will sell them for 2 euros: a few thousands at a pharmacy in Rome in via Cassia, asked him for the command of the Carabinieri of Sassuolo (who deny it), and 130,000 at the Sensor Medics in Milan who has already paid the transfer. Sensor, which buys directly from Chinese and Indian manufacturers and supplies many Lombard facilities, trusts: We bought this small lot to do a favor to a politician who recommended it to us, in reality we don’t need to use brokers. In Lombardy the film is more or less the same, the same in Veneto where an intermediary, who had already pocketed an advance, sells a load of 500,000 masks to 3 different subjects, and nothing arrives at the hospitals.
The cost of transport by weight of gold
Resellers who managed to take supplies in China today have to pay the charter that previously asked for 60/80 thousand euros and now costs 500,000 euros, because they no longer have to compete with the scheduled flights that loaded them into the holds. And therefore everything increases: the protective suits, which cost 13 euros, today less than 20 are not found. The surgical masks that arrived in Lombardy went from 10-30 cents to 1.4 euros. In addition, out of 123 million pieces (including surgical, Ffp2 and Ffp3) ordered from the central purchasing department, 6.3 million arrived on March 24. Just enough for a week.
The commissioner focuses on the customs seizures
Brokers buy big lots with the central bank’s letter of credit, but it happens that only a part send it to hospitals, the rest go on the market online or to other channels. Article. 6 of decree 18 of 17 March provides that all material not intended for essential services or public health, is seized and delivered to hospitals. The Aesthetic Center of Naples buys 20,000 Ffp2 masks from Turkey for its operators, but at the same time the website is made to resell them for 6 euros each. A company in Vicenza is blocked by a load of surgical masks purchased in Tunisia for export in the form of hydraulic material. A parapharmacy had accumulated 30,000 of them in a Nomentana warehouse, destined for the internet market, passed off as Ffp2 with false Ce certification. 30,000 arrive in Verona for a municipality in the Veneto region which had 10,000 orders. In 5 days, the Customs agency confiscated 1.5 million masks, 2.7 million gloves, 1,840 ventilation devices, 4,398 medical devices, 23 surgical aspirators, 50,000 intensive care devices. Immediately unlocked material is sent to hospitals the same day through local civil protection. The compensation due to the owners will be paid by the extraordinary Commissioner. Commissioner Arcuri has decided that all the seized material must be centralized with the National Civil Protection, who will then decide which structures to redistribute it to. So everything is choked in the bottleneck of the Roman bureaucracy, while the regional civil protections scramble to find pulmonary ventilators and surgical aspirators, available in stores a few meters from them, waiting for a decision on where to go.
What is blocking Italian production
Article. 15 of the same decree authorizes the production of gloves and masks for medical use and for workers, in derogation from the CE standards. Many companies, large and small, have taken steps to reconvert their business, but before starting with the investments they want to be sure that no one then disputes the safety of the product. the manufacturer’s self-certification is required, but according to what criteria? In Germany, the health authority has established a simplified protocol to follow. In Italy forty manufacturers have turned to Italcert and companies that test the materials for indications, which have defined a simplified procedure and sent to INAIL and the Istituto Superiore di Sanit (ISS). Estimated time for reply: three days. Inail immediately rejected it: it is necessary to follow the standard procedure (which took a few months); after 10 days the ISS still does not pronounce. In the meantime, the companies that would be ready for conversion are stuck. Others have started production, but are still blocked by Roman permits. On the other hand, in the decree, next to the sentence that authorizes the production in derogation from the current regulations, the word and import has been inserted.
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