Skip to main content
Italy and the virus
From Piedmont, NICK WRIGHT assesses the (almost) post-Covid-19 political situation in a nation that has dealt with the pandemic so much more efficiently than Britain and the US
One of the baskets with food and other goods hanging from balconies and left at disposition of people in need during the coronavirus emergency in Milan, April 2020

DONALD TRUMP’S mercifully short and atypical experience of Covid-19 does rather demonstrate that when you have access to the most expensive healthcare system in the world, top-class doctors, whatever drugs they prescribe and urgent need to contest an election, that the only thing to do is blow dry your hair, tuck in your tummy and put a smile on your face.

He was a bit unsteady, with a slight glaze on his scrubbed visage, but the Commander-In-Chief — the one who didn’t actually go to war — put on a brave face. Displaying symptoms suggestive of “steroid euphoria” he appeared ready for a fight. Steroids plus an outsize ego and we have a jet-powered POTUS. For a while, possibly.

The train crash that is the US response to the pandemic is a good demonstration of the role that ideology plays in public policy. A private-insurance-based health system that excludes millions of people from healthcare and puts expensive medical treatment beyond the incomes of millions more inevitably leaves a big space for infections like Covid-19 to spread.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Immigration / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all 

ANGER GROWS: Protesters demonstrate in Dover against migrant
Features / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
The left must confront both far-right bigotry and the undeniable problems the exploitation of migrant workers by the ruling class creates — but there are few lessons from the global left on how to strike this balance, laments NICK WRIGHT
FACING THE RIGHT:
Anti-racist protesters
in Walthamstow, 202
Features / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
Xenophobic hysteria over the statistically insignificant number of small-boat crossings deliberately conceals how capitalism manipulates population flows for profit — if we can explain that, we’ll beat the right, argues NICK WRIGHT
PREMONITION OF DISASTER: Anonymous photographer, Fallen Stat
Book Review / 18 March 2025
18 March 2025
NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly
Similar stories
Italy's deputy premier, Matteo Salvini, shakes hands with a
World / 20 December 2024
20 December 2024
Demonstrators gather during a public and private sectors' na
World / 29 November 2024
29 November 2024
Italy's Premier Giorgia Meloni reacts as an honour guard sta
Rise of the right in Europe / 27 May 2024
27 May 2024
In the first of a series on the rise of the European far right, independent leftist journalist GIULIANO MARRUCCI says that Italyʼs coalition, since taking office, has completely adapted to the Establishment
Demonstrators clash with the police during a protest on the
Features / 9 May 2024
9 May 2024
Liberation Day celebrations have brought the dark reality of the Giorgia Meloni government’s fascist origins to the surface as the nation's industrial and political struggles boil over, reports NICK WRIGHT