The Corona Virus 19 (COVID 19) epidemic is an infectious disease which was declared as a pandemic and hit all the Countries, all over the world, from the beginning of the year 2020. In Italy the epidemic is particular serious with 169.325 confirmed cases and 21.551 deaths on 20.04.2020. To stop the contagion on March 8 and up to May 3, the Italian Government decided a lockdown for all the Country, the authors suggest how to manage the reopening and restarting of all the activities avoiding a restart of the epidemic.
Background: Italy and especially Lombardy region was the first European Country hit by the covid 19 pan-demic, without a proper preparedness plan. Italy's health-care service is a regionally based National Health Service (NHS) that provides universal coverage, largely free of charge at the point of service. Aim of this paper is to analyse the national and especially the regional strategies put in place to face the pandemic, fo-cusing on the impact of the overlap of the political and health competences among national and regional authority. Methods: Italian hygiene and preventive medicine society (SITI) realized a questionnaire submitted to National Institute for Health and regional stakeholder to investigate the response to the epidemic analys-ing the strategies and actions put in place both by the national and regional governments and the regional health authorities. Results: The national survey highlighted several critical points in the management of the covid 19 pandemic in the different regional contexts such as lack of personnel in preventive departments and preparadness. Conclusions: Lessons learnt during the pandemic should shape the future of the Italian health service. (www.actabiomedica.it).
