Italy’s Public Policy During COVID-19
Class: IS206 Created Time: August 7, 2020 5:27 PM Database: Evergreen Database Last Edited Time: September 7, 2021 9:16 PM Provided Materials: IS206-G5-Assignment-Report.docx Tags:#COVID-19,#Italy,#Public-Policy Type: Permanent Notes
Group 5
Report
As we all know that the current COVID-19 is a very serious disease that now becomes the ongoing global concern as it has caused too many people to become sick and died since it was the outbreak until it now became the pandemic. According to the research on the Internet, it showed that on May 09, 2020, the total number of assessed cases of COVID-19 in Italy is 218.268 which has 84.842 people have tested positive. While there are 103.031 patients have recovered and 30.395 remained deaths. After the explosion of the coronavirus in Italy, it led to having the consequences of the socio-economic and healthcare sectors. In order to promote economic growth in Italy during this pandemic, of course, the focus should be on the health sector and how to contain and manage the infection. Lockdowns and social distancing measures should be implemented and be made stricter if necessary, to make sure the number of cases drop. As for Italy’s healthcare sector, this pandemic has pushed it to the breaking point even though Italy is known for its world-class health system. While the cases of COVID-19 have surged up, the hospitals are filled with COVID-19 patients and leave out the normal patients; plus, the hospitals have also run out of bed, spaces, and personal protective equipment (PPE) for doctors and nurses. Another major problem is that those who serve as the frontlines and healthcare workers also catch the virus which made the situation worse and struggled to keep up. Doctors and nurses have worked days and nights without rest to treat the patients and this made feeling both physical and mentally exhausted. But not all COVID-19 patients are treated at the hospital because mild symptom patients can isolate and treat themselves at home. The healthcare system in Italy hit hard as healthcare workers are not well prepared to the outbreak of the coronavirus and it seems like there is no expert to guide their way. Moreover, the late respond of the government and the underestimation of Italian people to the virus also made the healthcare system to be overwhelmed. So, we can see that there is a surge in the demand for hospital supplies and equipment amid the effects from COVID-19. Therefore, the best method to promoting economic growth during this time is to invest in healthcare, hospitals, and equipment. Furthermore, it is every country’s goal to reopen society and economy as quickly as possible to maintain economic growth. However, forcing re-opening of society and economy too early may have the consequence of resurgence of new cases. The clear goal must be implemented now so that safe reopening of society will be able to take place as fast and as safe as possible. Therefore, Italy needs to reform its healthcare and other public facilities to deal with the inevitable impacts. The timing will be according to the ability to reform these facilities to manage the virus itself and to minimize the risk of another wave of infection. This method is possible through cooperation with other European countries and others, in increasing the efforts of producing hospital equipment to fight the coronavirus and maintain the shortage of health care workers. Another change that could help Italy’s economy is ensuring financial resilience to families and businesses by providing unemployment benefits to those who lost their income, either employed or self-employed to make sure they keep going and not affected disproportionally that could have permanent effects on the economy. As economic situations also react to political stability and instability of the country, we need to take a look at that aspect as well. All types of foreign investments require that the host country promise potential, promise to remain stable, and will predictably return profit back to the investor. However, reports have shown Italy’s political stability rating has dropped to an all-time low since 2004 (its lowest year). This corresponds to the drop in economic growth that seemed to have stagnated dropped to below 0.5 percent each year and even contraction in GDP in some years. It can also be seen that economic growth of Italy in the period of around 50 years have a downward trend of GDP growth each year. This stagnation and economic contraction have been said to be caused by the ever-unstable political instability of Italy. Over the last 73 years, Italy has had 68 different governments. This is two time as many governments than the United Kingdom in the same time frame. The reason for the constant instability within Italy stems from its constitution. From 1922 to 1943, Benito Mussolini had power Italy and led it into World War II. After World War II, in 1946, Italy’s constitution was written to not let too much power fall into one person’s hand, making a weak government system. In result, the prime minister’s office was weak and must pass reforms through confidential votes, if the leader loses the vote, he and the entire government must step down from power. That was the reason why Italy had so many different governments in such a short period of time. The problems need a reform or fine-tuning of the governmental system as a whole to deal with the problems of:
- Prime Minister’s office is weak in making any decisions, can be confidential voted out of office
- Coequal houses of parliament that doesn’t negotiate and must agree on identical bills to make into law
- People are divided into many different political parties and coalition governments can fall apart if they don’t come to terms with one party
Italy is one of the affected countries of the COVID-19 pandemic that has resulted in the impacts on the growth of the country. So, to be able to grow economically, Italy needs to manage the coronavirus crisis cautiously to reduce the likeliness of its resurgence then deal with its political instability.
Italy’s Public Policy During COVID-19