ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Doctors diagnosed the first case of Covid-19 in Italy on Feb 21 of this year, and the country quickly became the ‘epicenter’ of the pandemic, with almost 1000 people dying everyday in March. By October, there had been more than 35.000 deaths.

In March the Italian government imposed a national lockdown, limiting movements, prohibiting social life and keeping to the minimum the contacts in the hospitals, making the health caregivers the only human contact patients had.

Thousands of Italians were completely alone, in their house and in their deathbed.

While all these restrictions were implemented, Luigi Cavanna, the head of the Oncology ward in Piacenza Hospital, took on himself the decision of trying a different approach and treating the disease in its early stage, in the same way you would treat cancer.
Equipped with a device that monitors the level of oxygen in the blood and a portable ultrasound chest scanner, Dr Cavanna started visiting patients at their home - treating them mostly with hydroxychloroquine – and giving them the human contact and reassurance that they were missing.
He took care of more than 365 patients and only a small percentage had to be hospitalized.

AUTHOR
Gabriele Micalizzi is an Italian photojournalist. He collaborates with national and international newspapers such as: New York Times, Corriere della Sera, Espresso, International, Wall Street Journal. His works focus on the social condition of people and the relationship they
have with the territory in where they live.

He is one of the founders of the Italian collective Cesura. In 2011 he began to reporting all the events related to the “Arab Spring”;. Since 2016 he is testimonial of Leica and is the first
winner of the European photographic talent, Master of Photography.

In November 2016 he presented his work on the Libyan situation: DOGMA. In 2019, during
the Kurdish offensive in the Baghuz area against the last bastion of Isis, he was wounded by
an RPG rocket. After the accident, during 2020 in Libya he cover the arrival of Turkish troops
sent to help President Al Sarraj resist General Haftar’s attack.

During the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, he followed the area with the highest number of cases, covering Bergamo and the rest of Lombardy, following doctor Cavanna’s work in the
countryside of Piacenza. The pictures have been published in journals such as Time
magazine, le Monde, VICE USA and Internazionale.

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