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 Last year on Feb. 21, the 47-year-old pulmonary disease specialist
at Codogno hospital was thrust into the vortex of the coronavirus
pandemic when a man from the town became the first person in Italy
to test positive for the virus.
The town of 15,000 residents became ground zero for the virus, the
unwitting "capital" of the first area in Europe to be locked down.
Codogno and 10 nearby towns in the Lombardy region, which became the
hardest hit in Italy, and another town in the bordering Veneto
region, were isolated from the outside world. Checkpoints were set
up, train stations abandoned.
Then COVID-19 victims overwhelmed the hospital in Codogno.
"I saw these patients succumb to serious breathing problems and I
would apply everything that I had studied, everything I knew, but
sometimes these patients just didn't respond," he said. "This just
left our hearts in pieces and our heads devastated."
A few weeks later, Tursi began feeling extreme fatigue, not
explained by his long shifts. Then came strong chest pains.
He had contracted the virus and was sent to a hospital in the
regional capital Milan. "My world collapsed," he said, speaking at
his home in the nearby town of Lodi.
His wife, Valentina Mondini, 34, was five months pregnant with their
first child, one he feared he might never see.
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 "I thought maybe the whole year
was going to be terrible for me, that maybe my
life would end," he said.
Instead, he recovered after about six weeks and
was back on the job in Codogno, this time with
even more empathy for COVID-19 patients.
"It was an additional weapon that I could use,"
he said. "Finally I was able to fully understand
what a patient was feeling."
A year on, Tursi is still treating COVID-19
patients in Codogno, which has returned to a
semblance of normality. Young people shop for
clothes and pensioners reminisce in bars.
Everyone wears masks and respects social
distancing rules.
"I want to live, I want to live for Antonio, for
Valentina, I want to live for everyone," he
said. "I want to live for my patients."
 (Additional reporting by Emily Roe and Philip
Pullella in Rome, Writing by Philip Pullella;
Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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