Count to the UN: the pandemic is an opportunity for a new beginning

• WHO: a video on social media pays homage to Italy for how it faced the pandemic

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25 September 2020

The invisible enemy of the pandemic is a tragedy that has changed us, but it is also the opportunity for a new beginning: this is how Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte spoke on video at the 75th General Assembly of the United Nations.

"Italy was the first country in Europe and in the West that found itself facing this emergency on a large scale. Our country has become a symbol of a collective effort, human before health and political, then brought as a dowry to the 'entire international community "continues the premier.

"In the weeks of profound emergency, Italy experienced first hand the support and closeness of the world community. There were many manifestations of solidarity and assistance and many, I want to emphasize, the certificates that recognized strength, resilience and courage of my fellow citizens to whom, even here, I feel the duty to say 'thank you' for the great sense of responsibility shown ".

Health as a common good to be guaranteed to all

"The teaching that our national community has drawn from this difficult experience is, in its complexity, very simple: health is a common, inalienable good, and as such must be guaranteed to every woman, to every man on the planet ", adds Conte.

Vaccine available to all peoples

"Today I am proud not only that Italy, with its scientists, researchers and its companies, is the protagonist in some of the most advanced projects for vaccine research. It makes me particularly proud to be able to say also that our contribution and our research will be a collective heritage: the vaccine will be made available to all peoples. We cannot afford to look to the future of the Planet and of our children with selfishness, ignoring the fact that the protection of health risks, in different, too many parts of the world, to be a luxury ".

EU essential reference point

"The European Union has understood the scale of the challenge: to rethink our world, make it more sustainable, greener, more digital, more inclusive. 'Next Generation Eu' represents, together with the measures of the European Central Bank, a historic opportunity to place Europe as an essential point of reference for the global partnership towards new perspectives ", continues the premier.

"The announcement made last week by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, of a 'Global Health Summit' in 2021 in Italy during the year of the Italian Presidency of the G20, is the testimony of this active will. a moment of coordination and at the same time the tangible demonstration of a renewed multilateral cohesion, marked by the pursuit of collective well-being. A decisive passage of that leading role of the international community that we hope with great hope ".

Unforgivable mistake ignoring Covid-19 lesson

"The hope of winning the pandemic soon must not coincide with the wish to return to simple 'normality' as soon as possible. We must desire more, imagine and reinvent a different world: because the former reality it was not the best possible, it could be perfected. The bet for each of us is therefore to be better: it is the life lesson that the pandemic has written on our agendas. Ignoring it, turning the page, would be an unforgivable mistake ".

G20 Italy, a moment of rebirth for New Humanism

"We are well aware of the responsibility that, with the Presidency of the G20, will fall on our country in guiding global efforts. Above all, we do not ignore the particular historical phase that the world community is experiencing, within which will inscribe the works of this important assembly We firmly believe that the next G20 in Italy can take on the significance of a moment of collective rebirth, becoming an opportunity to cement that sense of community that every nation had in gestation during the dark period of the pandemic. We can recover the synergy and brotherhood necessary to transform the tragic nature of what happened into an opportunity for redemption, for relaunch. And imagine, together, a New Humanism that puts the value of Man back at the center ".