Their decision to take matters into their own hands wound up
triggering a national emergency - they had identified the first
case of COVID-19 in the area that would become Europe's first
lockdown zone.
A previously healthy 38-year-old man, now known as Mattia, his
first name, or "patient one", had gone to the hospital with a
high fever, cough and shortness of breath on Feb. 18, 2020. He
refused to be admitted so was given antibiotics and went home.
He returned that evening in worse shape and was put on oxygen.
Two days later, Mattia's wife told doctors that a few weeks
earlier he had gone to dinner with a colleague who had been in
China.
But Mattia did not fit national criteria for mandatory
coronavirus testing because he had not been in China personally.
"I had to explain many times why I wanted to perform it (a COVID
swab) anyway," said Malara, 39.
"Doctor Malara and myself decided to break protocol," Ricevuti
recalled. They performed the nasal swab and sent it to a lab in
Milan.
At 9:30 p.m. the phone rang. The test was positive.
"We couldn't believe it. We thought this was a far away problem
that had to do with China, but it was already here with us, and
not just from that February 20th but probably from much
earlier," Ricevuti, 44, said.
In the days that followed, Codogno, a town of 15,000 residents,
became the "capital" of the first "red zone" in Europe to be
locked down.
"In the beginning I hoped - we all hoped - that the virus would
be limited to a few people," said Malara. "But after a few hours
a lot of people came to the emergency room with the same
symptoms and after a few days it was clear that it had spread
into the population."
Since then 95,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Italy, the
second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the
seventh-highest in the world.
Both women are still treating COVID-19 patients.
"This is our mission. We cannot really retreat," Ricevuti said.
"Day-by-day we go forward, facing the difficulties and the
changes that life presents us ... you need a lot of physical and
mental strength."
(Additional reporting by Emily Roe, Eleanor Biles and Philip
Pullella in Rome; Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Janet
Lawrence)
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