Since March, there have been more than 12,500 cases in Lazio and more than 2,600 in Sardinia, according to official figures.
Roberto Ragnedda, the mayor of the Sardinian town of Arzachena, where many of the clubs are, said “10 days of madness” in August had caused “enormous damage to our image and to economy.”
“If the owners of the clubs were more careful these outbreaks could have been avoided,” he said, adding that, despite having gotten the outbreak under control, “we are seen as the source of everything wrong.”
For the authorities in Sardinia, the summer realized their worst nightmare.
In March,
as infections and deaths exploded in the country’s north, the southern island’s governor, Christian Solinas, pleaded with the authorities in Rome to ban travel to Sardinia because Italians, especially those with a second home there, kept arriving. The government obliged.
As a result,
Sardinia essentially dodged the Covid-19 disaster. In mid-April, when Italy reached more than 170,000 total cases for the virus, Sardinia had about 1,000.
Over the ensuing months, the virus all but vanished from the island, with zero new infections on May 14. Mr. Solinas vowed to keep it that way and at the time proposed requiring a “sanitary passport,” essentially a sticker certifying a negative coronavirus test result attached to a boat or plane ticket. The government called it unconstitutional, and ultimately, tourists only had to register via an online form on the region’s website.
Still, it seemed sufficient. Mr. Solinas, using powers given by the national government, decided to reopen outdoor nightclubs, as long as people danced at a distance.
But August has been Sardinia’s hot season since the 1960s, when the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of some 20 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide and an enthusiastic jet-setter, banded together with friends to buy miles of northeastern coastal land from herders and developed luxurious hotels, yacht and golf clubs and a village in medieval Moorish style along what became known as the Emerald Coast.
The authorities are investigating partygoers for leaving false names and numbers at clubs to avoid contact tracing. The Italian civil protection agency complained about a 5 a.m. incident at the Just Cavalli nightclub of the zebra-print fashion house Roberto Cavalli, in which a man broke the nose of a volunteer for blocking his yellow Mercedes and “ruining his holiday.” Johnny Micalusi, a Rome-based celebrity chef known as the King of Fish and for schmoozing with his famous guests at their tables, was hospitalized with Covid-19 after working out of a Sardinian club.
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) Indian press, etc., on all this .....
