There are fifteen cities with the red sticker for today, sixteen for tomorrow: the Ministry of Health’s bulletin on heat waves, which every day measures the risk in 27 urban centers, photographs a country crushed under the African anticyclone, which shows no signs of loosening its grip, also in light of the forecast of the Department of Epidemiology of Lazio, responsible for drafting the bulletin, which speaks of a wave destined to intensify over the weekend. For today, Tuesday 23 June, the maximum alert level (the red dot, level 3) concerns Ancona, Bologna, Bolzano, Brescia, Florence, Frosinone, Milan, Perugia, Pescara, Rieti, Rome, Turin, Venice, Verona and Viterbo.
Two cities in orange, Bari and Latina. Yellow sticker for the remaining ten: Cagliari, Campobasso, Catania, Civitavecchia, Genoa, Messina, Naples, Palermo, Reggio Calabria and Trieste.
What that red dot means is worth remembering, because it is not a detail for the elderly and chronically ill. Level 3 indicates emergency conditions with negative effects expected also on healthy and active people, not only on the most fragile subgroups. The longer the wave lasts, the worse the consequences are: the heat that lasts wears out everyone, not just those who are already vulnerable.
Wednesday 24 June: the cities at maximum risk rise to sixteen
Tomorrow the picture will get worse. Added to today’s fifteen cities is Latina, which goes from orange to red, bringing the provinces of Lazio to the alert level to five out of five. Bari and Trieste remain in orange, while the yellow sticker accompanies Cagliari, Campobasso, Catania, Civitavecchia, Genoa, Messina, Naples, Palermo and Reggio Calabria.
The redundancy fund returns due to the record heat
Behind the bulletin there is a political decision that deserves attention. The Council of Ministers on 22 June reintroduced the redundancy fund as an exception for “exceptional heat waves”, a measure already tested in recent years: the worker forced to stop is entitled to 80% of the salary for the hours not worked. On the local front, ordinances are multiplying, from Puglia, which extends protection to those who work in greenhouses and agricultural tunnels, to Sicily, which prohibits working under the sun during the hottest hours, a sign that the heat has become a question of safety at work even before weather reports. The Ministry, meanwhile, has reactivated the toll-free number 1500 for useful advice on containing the risks. The recommendations are the same as always, and for this reason they remain disregarded: no physical activity and no exposure to the sun between 11am and 6pm, lots of liquids, no alcohol or caffeine. Translated: the central hours of the day should be spent sheltered. Easy to say, in a summer that has just begun to flex its muscles.
