Bassetti: “My holidays by the sea, without a mask”

“I will go on holiday in August to the sea, to my Liguria, to the family home in Celle Ligure, and I will not keep the mask on the beach. I will wear it only where I think it is needed: for example at the supermarket or pharmacy, on a train and in all closed environments where distancing is not possible “. This is how Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the San Martino hospital in Genoa responds to Adnkronos Salute, questioned about his holidays and anti-Covid ‘summer’ behavior. “With 50% of Italians vaccinated, with hospitals emptying, with an Rt index at levels that we have not seen for months and above all with a very low number of cases per 100 thousand inhabitants (in Liguria we are 10 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants) understand the reason why I should wear a mask when I am on a sunbed on the beach or on the summit of a mountain “, Bassetti reasons. That to the Italian vacationers he says “don’t let the mask become a banner, something that you put on otherwise you get a fine. How it is brought today is nonsense: there are people who take it in the car and are alone, while they are on a scooter or walking alone in a wood or when the one next to it is 3 meters away. So I say to the swimmers that, despite the obligation, it is anachronistic to take it to the beach, when they go to the bar instead they have to put it on “. As for his holidays, Bassetti confesses: “I will do them, after a very heavy year, but staying 30 km from Genoa, because for a director of a complex operational structure it is never a vacation, the mobile phone is always on, the chat I have with my collaborators plays and will play even on holidays during the day and at night, and in all the holidays. In short – he jokes – I will be like Dr. Raniero Cotti Borroni of the film ‘Honeymoons’ by Verdone, always available, and I will answer every phone call ‘No, it doesn’t bother me at all, just tell me.’ My children make fun of me for this but I really answer like that, always every hour and 365 days a year. “What do you most want to do? “Regaining possession of the relationship with my children, aged 12 and 16, who in this year and a half I have seen but always with my head somewhere else, I need to be with them not only from a physical point of view but also of mental harmony “.