Around 44,000 fans of Atalanta Bergamo arrived at the San Siro stadium in Milan on February 19. Many of them are believed to have contracted the corona virus there. Picture: EPA ANSA
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“Biological bomb” – a football festival brought Bergamo the corona virus
It is the “Wuhan of Europe”: Bergamo has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. As of March 22, the Lombardy city and its environs counted 5,869 infected and nearly a thousand dead. The images of military trucks that carry coffins out of the city drastically illustrate the seriousness of the situation. Why is the virus so raging here?
Initially, epidemiologists focused on Alzano Lombardo’s district hospital in search of the reasons for the disaster. The first two Covid-19 cases were registered there on February 23. The management of the small hospital underestimated the danger and hardly took any special measures. Shortly afterwards nurses, doctors and visitors became infected and carried the virus among their acquaintances.
Comparison of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Lodi and Bergamo, 24.2.-13.3.
Lodi ordered the lockdown on February 23, Bergamo only on March 8.
Image: Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science, University of Oxford & Nuffield College
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But in addition to this clinic, an event is increasingly coming into the focus of the scientists, which had brought joy to the shaken region just before the outbreak of the pandemic: On February 19, the first-division team from Bergamasque Atalanta Bergamo met in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 to the Spanish club Valencia. The game did not take place at the certain stadium in Bergamo, which does not meet the requirements of Uefa, but in San Siro in Milan, the largest stadium in Italy, 60 kilometers away.
Large amounts of virus particles
The game was a “festival”, as some Italian newspapers called it: Atalanta – which is something of an unofficial national team in the province of Bergamo – won the game 4-1 and created the best conditions for their first CL participation for moving into the quarter-finals. Around 44,000 enthusiastic fans of the “Dea” (“Goddess”), as the team is also known, fell into each other’s arms on this “magical night” in the stands of the Milan stadium. But not only was the joy shared, as it now turns out – the football festival was a festival of the corona virus.
“We can say that Atalanta-Valencia was the ‘game zero’,” said Francesco Le Foche, head of the infection and tropical diseases department at Rome’s Umberto I hospital, Francesco Le Foche, of the Corriere dello Sport. The immunologist explained that there was a very quick release of large quantities of virus particles. This explains Bergamo’s anomaly – the unusually high number of Covid 19 cases in the province.
“The infection has exploded in the San Siro”: the immunologist Francesco Le Foche in the “Corriere dello Sport”. Extract: corrieredellosport.it
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Fabiano Di Marco, head of the pulmonary diseases department at the “Papa Giovanni XXIII” hospital in Bergamo, stated in the “Corriere della Sera” that Atalanta-Valencia was a “biological bomb”. Tens of thousands of fans from Bergamo drove to Milan by bus, train or car, sat close to each other in the metro, ate and drank together and celebrated the victory after the game. And they fraternized with fans of Valencia, 2500 of whom had also come. There were some preventive measures, but hardly anyone followed them.
«The detonator for the infection in Bergamo could have been the exodus of 45,000 Bergamans to Milan for #AtalantaValencia on February 19. It has been reconstructed that there have already been some cases of infection both in Valencia and in the province of Bergamo. Then the explosion of the infections (#Repubblica). »
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Infected and sick among the Tifosi
For Le Foche it is clear that among the countless Tifosi who did not want to miss this «historical game», there were also many carriers of the coronavirus who had no symptoms yet. Probably even some fans drove to Milan, who were already slightly feverish, but already had an admission ticket, says the immunologist. “The tightness, the screams, the euphoria and the hugs” would have favored the spread of the virus. The game was most likely one of several factors that caused Bergamo’s nightmare.
The fact that those responsible did not let the encounter play in front of empty ranks was what Le Foche called “in retrospect madness”. At that time, on February 19, however, things were not clear enough. “Today would be unthinkable.”
Infected players
The second leg on March 10 was not canceled for some unknown reason, but it took place in front of an empty seat. The “Dea” won this game too, but the joy of it was short-lived. Midfielder Marten de Roon wrote on Twitter that after the game the team was “happy for an hour”, then the situation in Bergamo came to the fore again.
«We were happy for an hour after the game against Valencia before we got back to the situation in Bergamo. Because it’s really bad. The streets are completely empty. All you hear is the sound of ambulances and church bells ringing for everyone who has unfortunately passed away. »
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The Valencia-Atalanta encounter (3-4) was a ghost game. Image: AP
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Spanish fans in Valencia. They were not admitted to the stadium, but gathered in tightly packed groups in front of it – despite the risk of infection. Image: EPA UEFA via Getty Images
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The evening at San Siro also had consequences for the teams involved: five players from Valencia are now infected, and several Spanish sports journalists are also in the hospital. 35 percent of the Spanish club’s employees are said to have contracted the corona virus. The University of Valencia attributes two foci of infection in and near Valencia to northern Italy.
In contrast, no team in the Atalanta team has yet tested positive for the new corona virus. However, the team was placed in quarantine.
