The Italian Job By Brian Simpson

Alex Berenson raises the point that has not be well-discussed, namely the role that Italy had in aiding the Covid lockdowns. It was Italy that was the first Western country to lockdown. British epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who produced what turned out to be completely wrong predictions about Covid deaths, while acknowledging China’s lockdowns, did not see that as relevant to non-communist countries, because China is “a communist one-party state… and then Italy did it. And we realized we could.” And thus, the lockdown mania began, with its total uselessness in stopping Covid spreading, but wrecking lives and small businesses in the thousands.

Why Italy, which at the time had only three Covid deaths? As I see it, no reason in particular beyond convenience, and an assessment of the population that this agenda could be put into place without resistance; they needed a case study and had to start somewhere. And the technocrats were right, and overjoyed at the power they suddenly had. And, the rest is history.

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/youve-heard-many-explanations-for

“China started the Covid lockdowns.

But Italy spread them worldwide.

On February 22, 2020, as the coronavirus receded in China, Italian authorities closed several towns, making Italy the first Western country to quarantine its citizens.

Nine days later, Italy closed its schools. Then, on March 9, it announced a national lockdown, testing “what a democracy can do during peacetime,” the Washington Post wrote.

—

Italy began moving before the British epidemiologist Neil Ferguson had created his terrifying projections that Covid would collapse health care systems. (Ferguson loves a good disaster, or at least a good disaster prediction - in 2005, he promised 200 million bird flu deaths.)

Ferguson himself credited Italy with helping him show Britain and the United States that societal “suppression” was possible. In December 2020, he told the Times of London that China’s forced quarantines didn’t seem relevant to Western countries because China is "a communist one-party state… and then Italy did it. And we realized we could.”