Anarchy reigns along the beaches of the Roman coast. The comings and goings of abusive vendors is continuous. Just stop on the dunes for a few minutes to realize that not even there pandemic managed to scratch the illegal trade. “You can not rest easy even under an umbrella, they are back to great”, says a woman in her sixties that we meet in one of the many free beaches of Ostia.
She is worried: “They do not wear the mask, or keep it lowered on the chin, it does not seem to me an acceptable thing, especially these days”. The reference is to the Bangladeshi seller stopped last Friday in Sabaudia. He went around selling trinkets to swimmers although he was positive for coronavirus. Just a week before, a Bengali citizen, employee of the “La Vela” factory in Ostia, had infected the six countrymen who lived with him. And the closure of the beach had also started, where the man had continued to go regardless of the symptoms of the disease. “I don’t trust and take my precautions, I don’t let them get close,” says our interlocutor.
Not everyone thinks so. In the rear of a free equipped beach, a woman is negotiating the price of a silver bracelet. The seller who just offered it to him wears neither gloves nor mask. A few moments later, however, the slush cart arrives. A man of Bengali origin pushes him and he stops a few steps away from us. The heat is torrid. And although the man does not have personal protective equipment, swimmers line up to quench their thirst. “Where are the gloves and the mask?”. The stranger rummages in his shoulder bag and hastily pulls them out. “But if you keep them in there they are useless, you have to put them in,” we retort. “I know, but it’s too hot,” he replies shortly before offering us the purchase of a drink.
Such scenes are repeated below in our eyes seamlessly (watch the video). According to what we have been able to verify, at least one in three vumpras does not wear personal protective equipment correctly. A surreal and dangerous situation, considering the hundreds of people they come in contact with on a daily basis. A contact who, in the case of masseuses and abusive hairdresser, it is also quite close. Backpack on the shoulder and straw hat on the head, a woman of Asian origin wanders among the umbrellas chasing customers. “How many treatments did you do today?”, We ask her. “Nobody, I’m just taking a walk,” he replies before walking away quickly.
“And what do you want me to tell you? He knows that he does illegal work and that he could not stay here, “comments a bather who witnessed the exchange of jokes. A man in his forties who says he is a regular on the free beach of Piazzale Magellano. “Every day there are at least four fixed here and I can assure you that they work well, people are irresponsible and behave as if the Covid had never existed, “he notes bitterly.
You can also see many abusive hairdresser, all strictly without a mask. The girls, mostly of Nigerian origin, do not take any precautions when approaching their customers. We ask a couple of them for explanations, but they prefer to ignore us. “While exhibitors are forced to obey the rules, everything is allowed here,” he vents Gaetano Di Staso, local spokesman for the Ecoitaliasolidale association, which in recent days had denounced the absurd situation.
“Those who use this kind of services – he continues – not only damage the economy, but endanger the health of the area”. “What happened to the promised checks? Look around: the free beaches are a charnel house, the social distancing has been skipped, you enter and exit freely and the illegal proliferation ”, complains the activist. For him, the prospects are not rosy: “If we continue like this, Lazio risks a new one lockdown”.
–
