Abolish the Green Pass starting with museums, exhibitions and cultural venues

At last it seems to be no longer a forbidden topic to talk about the abolition of the Green Pass, and in this sense the latest openings of the members of the Technical-Scientific Committee and even some of the most televised scientists give hope. One of the first to speak about abolishing the Green Pass was, on Monday in aninterview in Il Giornale, physician Fabio Ciciliano, a member of the Cts, saying that “at the end of spring we can think about removing it permanently.” Then it was the turn of Matteo Bassetti, who returned to the subject several times, including today in the Corriere: very reasonably, he says that once the state of emergency is over, there will be only two million Italians under the age of 50 who are not vaccinated, “a figure we can afford,” and therefore (considering the data and, we might add, considering that there is a quota that will never get vaccinated no matter what measure is taken) it will no longer make sense to prolong the Green Pass. Similar considerations from Andrea Crisanti as well.

We have never made any secret of our critical positions toward the Green Pass, which we have repeatedly emphasized on these pages as well. And today we can also add that the insistence on the Green Pass has created an unnecessary climate of no-vax hunting that has distracted attention from more interesting and urgent problems, starting with the importance of investments in the health sector, which in recent years has undergone heavy downsizing, with the result that when the emergency broke out, Italy found itself forced to pay the price for the policies of previous years. The last few months, of course, have seen massive investments raining down on the sector, opening up a possible season of revitalization for national health care, and the number of intensive care units has almost doubled compared to what could be counted on at the beginning of the pandemic (albeit with the typical territorial disparities that are now structural), but it is undeniable that Italy’s suffering is due more to the legacy of years of bad choices than to the contingent choices of an increasingly residual part of the population. The argument, in short, is much more complex than the vulgate has made it out to be.

Similar simplifying tendencies have concerned the application of the Green Pass to places of culture, where, however, the risk of contagion has always been low and which it would have been desirable to include among the activities always open to all, since museums, exhibitions, archaeological sites and similar places, although often thought of (starting with museums) as places of entertainment, are in fact garrisons of citizenship and useful tools for society, just as schools and hospitals are. To have subordinated places of culture to the logic of rewards (no one now conceals the true nature of the green certificate: not a health tool, but a tool of persuasion), and having considered them among the first places to be subjected to the Green Pass discipline (museums and exhibitions, in particular, included in the list of activities with a certificate requirement since the July 23 decree-law, and thus considered not on a par with essential public services, for which the Green Pass requirement came much later, but on a par with festivals and fairs, game halls, and recreation centers), provided a good measure of the regard in which the proponents of this measure hold culture.

It was then believed that the Green Pass would boost museum attendance, and comparisons with 2020 visitor figures were misleadingly used to demonstrate this. One need only look at the example of the president of the Egyptian Museum Foundation, Evelina Christillin, who in October made people believe that the increases in visitors recorded at the Egyptian Museum in comparison with the previous year were due to the introduction of the Green Pass. The data fully demonstrated that the Green Pass was completely irrelevant and that trends in visitation respond, if anything, to the distribution of flows throughout the year and the public’s perception of the health situation. One can take as an example just the case of the Egyptian Museum, analyzing data from theCultural Observatory of Piedmont, and taking into account the fact that in 2020 the institution had reopened to the public on June 2 after a long period of closure, and the fact that throughout the summer of 2020 museums had continued to score low figures throughout Italy. Here it is: the Egyptian Museum in June 2021 recorded 36,246 visitors against 11,056 in 2020 and against 49,576 in 2019, in July 42,933 (against 16,122 and 46,723), in August 53,433 (against 40,368 and 71,473), and in September 39,171 (against 26,585 and 56,058).

What emerges from the data, similar on many other museums as well? First, that the double-digit increases also concern the month of July, when there was no Green Pass (one can also disregard June, since it came after a long period of closure, but if one wanted, the reasoning could be extended). Second, that in September visitors declined: this is because the trends trace, as mentioned, logics of flow distribution that know little variation over the years (in all years from 2013 to 2019, with the sole exception of 2017, the Egyptian Museum recorded declines between 26% and 36% between August and September, and 2021, although with a slightly better percentage, was no exception, marking -21%). Third, that the August figures could also be based on the presence of tourists, which dropped during the pandemic: on comparison with previous years, September was almost always better than August. Fourth, that in absolute terms the Green Pass did not serve to bring museums back to pre-pandemic levels (but the same would have happened even without any obligation: the absence of tourists weighed in, and by cross-referencing the data of the unvaccinated with those of museum visitors, for example, the typical profile of the unvaccinated according to data from the Lazio Department of Epidemiology and those of the non-visitor according to Istat data, almost overlapping profiles emerge). Even on the topic of museums and Green Passes, in essence, the data bring out, if anything, a much more complex landscape than has been portrayed in the media. Nor is the justification that visitors felt safer with the Green Pass any longer valid: the last few weeks have also demonstrated with the force of evidence that there could be no safety from infection even with only vaccinated people, a factual reality that we have tried to point out on these pages from the very beginning, even when it was considered entirely improper to talk about it.

In light of all that has been considered, and because of the evolving health situation, it is clear that the existence of the Green Pass for museums and places of culture loses more and more sense with each passing day. And just as museums were among the first places to have the green certificate imposed, they may also be among the first to have it abolished. Culture, unfortunately, has not been kept away from this tool. Now we can take the opportunity to signal to everyone the importance of culture, at least on a symbolic level, by making it the first sector free of the Green Pass. This can be done immediately. Starting today. Without fear of making the health situation worse, given the zero influence museums and cultural venues have had on the infection trend, and without regret: those who needed the Green Pass applied to museums to be persuaded to get vaccinated have long since been vaccinated. All it takes is a pen line on the current decrees. Let the museums, exhibitions, libraries, archaeological sites, and archives go back to being open to everyone as soon as possible.

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