At first some boy with a fever, someone with a cold. And the swabs that were all negative. Hence the decision to “let it go”, the doctor who believes “it is impossible to stop everyone as soon as there is a problem”. Added to this is the ” bubble system that does not hold up ”, the guys who ” mix in the pool, because there are too few dedicated times ”. The result is that “ out of the 250 left from Rome on June 30, 280 with the staff ” for an INPS award trip to Dubai for deserving youngsters (morning study and afternoon excursions) ” two hundred have become positive ” for coronavirus . Gabriele H., a student of the Ripetta artistic high school in Rome, tells it to Adnkronos. One of the 50 boys in the group who did not contract Covid despite his ” roommate being positive ”. Gabriele, who ” preferred not to eat or drink so as not to lower the mask when one day I found myself with many guys, negative too, in a room for 6, 7 hours waiting to be sorted ” in the hotel. This happened on July 14, the day on which Gabriele, 18 years old just in the days of isolation in Dubai, would have to return to Italy together with the other negative kids. ” On the other hand, the government and the police blocked us at the Dubai airport. They didn’t let us leave, ” says the student. That the initial anger and dismay, the thought for his mother who was waiting for him in Rome and the hours spent at night at the airport on the ground and without meals, makes dialogue prevail. He is the spokesperson for young people like him, he asks to explain that ” if we had arrived in Italy we would have been an epidemiological bomb. And this would not only have been a damage for the Emirates, but also for all of Italy. Because once the negatives landed in Rome, which had come into contact with positives, they would go to the various regions ”. Instead, what “the Dubai government wanted to do is treat us as its citizens, take care of us”. So much so that at the hotel, the Emirates have ” sent a staff of doctors and nurses, there is an ambulance parked outside, they have drawn up an emergency plan and even intensive care. ” Although, Gabriele admits, ‘ ‘at first it didn’t seem like that, they seemed to want to fight us”. After being stopped at the airport, the negative guys are taken back to the hotel and put in a room to be tamponed. ” The result came after a day and a half, we were exhausted ”, he says. When they are sorted into the rooms, Gabriele realizes that “we were in the same building as the positive guys”. He then promoted a ” peaceful protest initiative. We got down on the ground and said we wouldn’t go into the rooms with positives next to them. Emirati officials arrived, we talked to them and they understood ”. The result is now ” sanitized rooms, where we have everything we need for our hygiene and to protect ourselves, we are provided with full meals, we can also order from an app ”. But the Delta variant, responsible for the maxi outbreak in Dubai, continues to spread. ” Even the doctor who was here with us contracted Covid ” and ” many children are asymptomatic. Others have cough, fever, sore throat, do not feel the flavors. ” Nobody is forced to stay in their room, ” with masks, spacing and all the necessary precautions you can also meet in a common space ”. And it is precisely in a common area of the hotel that, in the middle of a real odyssey, Gabriele was also able to blow out his 18 candles. ” A delegate from the Emirati Ministry of Health came to bring me the cake, there were several important officials. The positive guys who were in the other building looked out to congratulate me. They somehow managed to make me spend my eighteenth year quite well ”, says Gabriele, who left like many others to get school credit, study English and Arabic as well as for a well-deserved vacation after a difficult year between dad and social contacts reduced to a minimum. . ” Thirteen beautiful days of vacation, Dubai a cutting-edge city ”, recalls Gabriele. After the initial difficulties, “ dirty rooms, also due to the fact that part of the staff had been infected and was in quarantine ”, they helped. ” Emirati officials came to talk to us, they saw the situation with their own eyes and put their hand to it. The Arab government is helping us a lot, ” he says. The same goes for Italy, “I met the Italian vice consul in Dubai, all the Italian ministers took an interest”. Two groups of students involved. The first is that of Gabriele, who has seen two excursions blocked. The second is instead made up of ” other 250 boys, put in isolation on their fifth day of vacation after 110 positive ones were recorded in the first group. ” There were times when ” the situation was unsustainable, there was a great chaos and disorganization ”. There were ‘moments of despair, people crying. People with diabetes who did not have medicines, those who had work commitments ” that they could not respect. In ” many complained about the food ”, and ” the Emirati government promised improvements, which there have been, all at their expense. We Italians are a bit spoiled when it comes to food … ”. Even the cleaning staff, ” once they had the negative test swab they immediately went back to work, they are guys who are 5, 6 years older than us. Very good. ” Now, ” there are still 8 days to finish the quarantine ”. This means that “when these eight days are over, whoever is negative should be able to leave and return to Italy”. Those who test positive ” will be monitored every 48 hours. If he does not negativize, his viral load will be monitored. And if it is low, it will be made to travel with all due precautions ”.