Sacred – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

ROM – As Dr. Mario Sorlini puts patients in a vaccination center near the badly affected Italian city of Bergamo, explaining a possible complication of the coronavirus vaccine.

The second dose, he tells patients with horrified faces, will fall on a date during the summer vacation.

“‘But then I’ll be in Sardinia,'” he said, saying that some had responded with distress. Others moan about hotel rooms that they have already booked. Some, he said, get up and leave.

For months, Italians have been starving for vaccines that will give them security, freedom from lockdown and a taste of normal life. After initial pitfalls and hurdles, the vaccination campaign is finally accelerating, but it is entering the summer vacation, sacred to many Italians, and fears among officials that a significant number would rather get away than get vaccinated.

“I am sure that after such a tough year many will take the risk of delaying the vaccine,” said Renata Tosi, the mayor of Riccione, a beach town so identified with summer flights that she gave her name a new holiday anthem . This could pose a significant threat next fall, Ms. Tosi wrote in an open letter to the president of the region.

“The second shot blocks holidays,” read a headline in Messaggero Veneto, a newspaper in northeastern Italy, which raised concerns in newspapers, websites and social media accounts across the country.

An estimated 20 million Italians – mostly 40 and 50-year-olds – face the prospect of getting their second shots in mid-July or worse, in the flood of Italian August that draws people from cities to swelling coastal towns.

To avoid a potentially catastrophic summer freeze in the vaccination campaign and more economic troubles, the Italian regions are calling on the government to meet vacationers where they are and offer shots on the beach.

“We want to give tourists who do not come from Veneto the second dose,” Luca Zaia, the president of this region, which also includes Venice, told reporters. “And even foreigners, if they want, we can find a solution for them.” . “He has charged the government with pressure on the government to be more flexible in order to save the tourism season and loosen the rigid regional health system so that Italians in sun and surf regions far from home can be vaccinated.

Others are working on contingency plans. In Lombardy, another region in the north where the former health officer lost his job last year after refusing to recall nurses from the Christmas vacation, his successor has tried to avoid planning second doses in August.

The president of the mountainous region of Piedmont in the north-west has promised flexibility and proposed an agreement with the coastal region of Liguria that should allow their vacationers to exchange second doses.

Italy’s new government, led by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, prides itself on pragmatism and is desperate to get the tourism industry going. Mr Draghi recently announced that Italy would lift quarantines and restrictions on vaccinated international tourists, telling them, “It is time to book your vacation in Italy.”

Island paradises like Capri, preferred by many foreigners, have accelerated their vaccination campaigns and are now considered Covid-free. But when it comes to Italians who are still vaccinated during the summer months, the government has tried to strike a balance between being open to innovative ideas and scolding Italians for their spring and summer fever.

Updated

May 20, 2021, 9:17 p.m. ET

“When we do fancy flights and inventions, I’m not there,” said Francesco Paolo Figliuolo, an army general in charge of Italy’s vaccination efforts, on Tuesday, trying to throw cold water on the governors’ plans to vaccinate Italians where to go.

Such a policy would most likely disrupt rigid regional databases and the orderly process that has finally begun to lower deaths and contagions. Italians, the general said, should plan their vacations around the vaccination appointment near their home. “If you go on vacation, you should plan according to your appointment,” he said.

Massimiliano Fedriga, president of the Italian regional conference, also described the idea of vaccinating vacationing Italians as impossible.

“I hope everyone can see that there are millions and billions of tourists arriving in some places,” he told reporters. “And that it is technically impossible.”

He suggested leaving the vacation for a day and then going back.

But that is perhaps easier said than done, and many have complained that the government is responsible for changing reservations and creating confusion. To increase the number of Italians with some protection against the virus, on April 30, Italy allowed the waiting time between the first and second dose of the Pfizer vaccine to be extended from 21 to 42 days. Italians who received the AstraZeneca vaccine have to wait even longer between admissions, with those now receiving the first dose often coinciding the follow-up with the August Abyss.

The result has been a serious dilemma for Italians who have already planned their summer vacation and are weighing lost deposits against losing their vaccination slots.

Even in a normal year, summer holidays in Italy are a serious issue. For a certain, well-heeled section of society, summer plans, often a month away from work, are all they talk about, starting around March.

This year, people have sought vacations with such vengeance that tourism companies are using the term “vengeance trip” to describe how Italians are trying to cope with the gruesome months of lockdown as well. Surfing for vacation homes has become the new doom scrolling.

This week in Italy, Italians talked about how “holidays are sacred” and how the siren call of a vaccination wasn’t strong enough to keep them off the course of Sicily.

The less-at-risk 30- and 20-year-olds in the next category eligible for vaccination are even less likely to stay home during the summer.

Ms Tosi, the mayor of Riccione, said in her letter that she had received many appeals from people who received their first cans in Milan to take their second shots in their coastal city.

“We really want to answer” yes “and show that the country has the flexibility to fight the virus and save the summer.” We have to give citizens the opportunity to end their vaccination prices in vacation spots. “

Dr. Sorlini in Albino near Bergamo said that most of his patients accepted the summer follow-up appointment for the time being, but many asked, “Can I do this on the beach?”

He said he expects at least 10 people a day to give up their August dates for second shots, which means he will struggle not to waste those cans.

Ciro Mautone, 58, a security guard at Camponeschi, a café popular during the Rome holidays, said he selected Johnson and Johnson’s vaccine, which does not require a second shot in order not to partially interrupt a possible vacation.

But he said that after the brutal year that his work was impacted by company closings, he focused on making up for lost income rather than fretting about canceling a vacation.

“I wish I had this problem,” he said.

Emma Bubola and Gaia Pianigiani contributed to the coverage.

MADRID – They are often in dark, cavern-like rooms with a stage between the tables and chairs of the guests. These little clubs, called tablaos, acted as stepping stones for generations of flamenco artists in Spain to launch professional careers, much like the way many jazz musicians first became aware of the public in clubs like New Orleans.

But this intimate setup, designed to bring the audience close to the stage, has resulted in most tablaos failing to reopen, even after Spain lifted its toughest pandemic lockdown restrictions last summer. The situation has created an existential struggle for these cherished institutions at the heart of a national art form.

Juan Manuel del Rey, president of the national association of tablaos, said that if the government does not step in with more financial support, “We are now on the path to extinction.”

“You cannot work economically when you have almost more employees and artists than spectators,” he said.

While many theaters in Spain have reopened since last summer with reduced audience capacity, social distancing and other rules, this approach for tablaos has not been financially viable. Since the pandemic began, 34 of the national association’s 93 tablaos have permanently closed their doors, del Rey said.

Their disappearance comes when flamenco experienced one of its brightest moments, thanks in part to a tourism boom in Spain in recent years. Before the pandemic, foreign visitors flocked to the tablaos to discover a Spanish tradition that UNESCO is celebrating in the world’s intangible cultural heritage. After seven years of growth, the number of foreign visitors to Spain fell to 19 million last year, from almost 84 million in 2019.

The Spanish government donated a group of tablaos worth € 232,000, about $ 275,000, last year as part of more than € 2 million in support of the flamenco sector during the pandemic – a move the Ministry of Culture in a Described email as an “extraordinary effort”. However, tablao managers say the spate of recent closings shows that support was too little and too late.

In recent years, tablaos have provided work for 95 percent of Spanish flamenco artists, said del Rey. And many artists say they appreciate the creative benefits of working in informal places where they can test new ideas in front of an audience as they work towards bigger production.

Performing in a tablao “is something very unique because it is a place where I can reconnect with my inner feelings and share those emotions directly with the public,” said 35-year-old Jesús Carmona, who last year prestigious national dance award of Spain won in an interview.

“It also feels like coming home,” said Carmona, who first appeared in a tablao at the age of 10 and has since brought flamenco to many of the world’s greatest stages. “I kind of grew up in tablaos and I believe that you should never turn your back on the people and places that have helped you advance.”

On Saturday he danced in front of only 32 people in the Corral de la Morería, one of the most famous flamenco clubs in Madrid. The director of the venue is del Rey, the president of the national association. The club was founded by his father in the 1950s when tablaos began to flourish in Madrid and other parts of Spain.

Although he hosted this one-off show for Carmona on Saturday, he has otherwise closed the house since March last year. Del Rey limited audience numbers for the performance to a quarter of the 120 people the tablao could fit in before the pandemic when it also held two performances a night.

In Las Tablas, another tablao in Madrid, the venue’s two managers said they could have reopened their venue in February by taking on much of the work previously done by five employees on leave.

“We now also had to become a cleaning lady and waitress,” said Antonia Moya, one of the managers who was once a flamenco dancer herself. “This situation is simply not sustainable, but I also cannot imagine my life without this tablao and this flamenco.”

Some overseas visitors have managed to find their way to the fighting tablaos despite pandemic restrictions.

Last week the German student Sabina Reiter and a British friend attended her first flamenco performance in Las Tablas. “I love all kinds of music and dance and it feels wonderful not only to be able to spend an evening with my boyfriend in Madrid, but also to discover flamenco up close and not just on television,” said Reiter.

It’s that kind of response that makes the small venues so important to the art of performing. Jesús Fernández, a flamenco dancer who appeared this month on a show he also directed at the Centro Cultural Flamenco Tablao in Madrid, said such venues are “the best place for a flamenco dancer to try things out and forge an identity because you can improvise and see the public react in ways that are simply impossible in the more rigid format of a theater show. “

However, the reality of the pandemic has been inevitable for many tablaos across Spain, including the famous Palacio del Flamenco of Barcelona, which recently closed its doors for good.

In Madrid last month, an outdoor farewell performance was held at the centuries-old Villa Rosa, whose colorful tiled walls have been shown in films by Pedro Almodóvar and other Spanish directors, combined with a protest rally where participants placed flowers and candles at the entrance.

Such losses mean Spain is in danger of losing “the university of our flamenco,” said Rosana de Aza, a flamenco show producer who has run tablaos in Seville and Madrid. “In the tablao, our artists were able to put everything they learned into practice and turn their passion into a profession.”

With the remaining tablaos struggling to keep paying rent for their closed venues, some managers believe their survival relies on raising awareness of the importance of flamenco among locals, some of whom have avoided tablaos as tourist venues.

“Some people, especially younger ones, were not aware of the importance of flamenco and tablaos for our collective identity, and not just for tourists,” said Mimo Agüero. the director of the Tablao de Carmen in Barcelona.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “we sometimes only realize the importance of what we can lose when we have actually lost it.”