ROME — The attract of the turquoise waters, extravagant villas and unique dance golf equipment of the Emerald Coast of Sardinia proved stronger than ever in August, as Italian vacationers hungry for virus-free air mingled with regulars of the worldwide get together circuit hopping throughout from locations just like the Spanish island of Ibiza and Mykonos within the Aegean Sea.
They joined Silvio Berlusconi, the mogul who dominated Italian politics for a quarter-century and whose Sardinian refuge is worthy of a Roman emperor; and his businessman pal Flavio Briatore, an acquaintance of President Trump, organic father to Heidi Klum’s first youngster and proprietor of the island’s unapologetically hedonistic membership Billionaire.
Now Mr. Berlusconi, 83, lies in a Milan hospital with pneumonia after contracting the coronavirus. Mr. Briatore, who dropped in to pay him a go to at his Sardinian property and who had publicly complained about what he stated was an overreaction by the federal government to the pandemic, is quarantined in Milan with Covid-19, too.
It’s not clear when or how Mr. Berlusconi or Mr. Briatore have been contaminated. However native officers say that Billionaire and some different golf equipment ignored well being rules and have become the petri dish of an island epidemic that contaminated soccer coaches, socialites and showgirls because it unfold to the mainland.
Mr. Briatore’s membership says that it did greater than was requested of it and blamed a sensationalist information media for leaping to conclusions.
What’s for certain is that the number of cases in Sardinia shot up from a couple of dozen earlier than the summer time to greater than 1,000 within the house of a month and that the authorities have attributed greater than 750 circumstances in Lazio, the area that features Rome, to folks getting back from the island.
Roberto Ragnedda, the mayor of the Sardinian city of Arzachena, the place most of the golf equipment are, stated “10 days of insanity” in August had brought about “huge injury to our picture and to economic system.”
“If the house owners of the golf equipment have been extra cautious these outbreaks may have been prevented,” he stated, including that, regardless of having gotten the outbreak below management, “we’re seen because the supply of all the pieces unsuitable.”
For the authorities in Sardinia, the summer time 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 journey to Sardinia as a result of Italians, particularly these with a second dwelling there, saved arriving. The federal government obliged.
Because of this, Sardinia essentially dodged the Covid-19 disaster. In mid-April, when Italy reached greater than 170,000 whole circumstances for the virus, Sardinia had about 1,000.
Over the following months, the virus all however vanished from the island, with zero new infections on Might 14. Mr. Solinas vowed to maintain it that means and on the time proposed requiring a “sanitary passport,” primarily a sticker certifying a damaging coronavirus check outcome hooked up to a ship or airplane ticket. The federal government referred to as it unconstitutional, and finally, vacationers solely needed to register by way of an internet kind on the area’s web site.
Nonetheless, it appeared adequate. Mr. Solinas, utilizing powers given by the nationwide authorities, determined to reopen outside nightclubs, so long as folks danced at a distance. On Aug. 1, the island’s circumstances had ticked up solely barely, to 39.
However August has been Sardinia’s scorching season for the reason that 1960s, when the Aga Khan, the non secular chief of some 20 million Ismaili Muslims worldwide and an enthusiastic jet-setter, banded along with mates to purchase miles of northeastern coastal land from herders and developed luxurious motels, yacht and golf golf equipment and a village in medieval Moorish model alongside what turned generally known as the Emerald Coast.
This 12 months, it turned Italy’s viral scorching spot; “the Emerald Covid,” based on one headline within the newspaper Corriere della Sera.
The authorities are investigating partygoers for leaving false names and numbers at golf equipment to keep away from contact tracing. The Italian civil safety company complained a couple of 5 a.m. incident on the Simply Cavalli nightclub of the zebra-print vogue home Roberto Cavalli, through which a person broke the nostril of a volunteer for blocking his yellow Mercedes and “ruining his vacation.” Johnny Micalusi, a Rome-based movie star chef generally known as the King of Fish and for schmoozing along with his well-known friends at their tables, was hospitalized with Covid-19 after understanding of a Sardinian membership.
However based on Mr. Ragnedda, the “most egregious” offender was Mr. Briatore, at whose membership he as soon as delivered drinks whereas working his means by legislation college.
Mr. Briatore declined a request for an interview by Patrizia Spinelli, a spokeswoman for his Billionaire Life model. (“We didn’t simply create an organization, we constructed a way of life” is its motto.) She stated the membership was not accountable: “We’re victims of the state of affairs, too, and took all of the precautions.”
She famous that the membership had gone above and past well being rules, limiting its season to a single month, specifically coaching its employees and halving the variety of tables for the dinner present it developed to switch the same old disco.
She stated Mr. Ragnedda compelled the membership to shut early by banning the loud music crucial in a music and dance efficiency that individuals anticipated with their dinner.
“We’re all about music and power,” she stated.
She stated that 27 contaminated members of the membership’s employees have been remoted in single rooms on the firm’s expense within the Billionaire residences, and confirmed that about 30 contractors had additionally been contaminated.
Mr. Briatore is in quarantine after discovering his an infection throughout an Aug. 22 checkup for an unrelated ailment. This week, he assured his Instagram followers, “I’ve not disappeared,” and stated that he was in “tremendous kind.”
Mr. Briatore, a convicted card cheat and fixer of Formula 1 motor races, can be the star of the Italian model of “The Apprentice.”
“There was just one person who I wished. And that was Flavio,” Mr. Trump stated in a promo for the Italian present. In one other spot, the 2 males seem collectively at Trump Tower, firing one another. Mr. Briatore as soon as claimed of Mr. Trump that he had been “the primary to deliver him to Europe” however has since downgraded their relationship standing to a publicity stunt.
Mr. Briatore, who often wears a white beard and black T-shirts, has bristled on the assaults on Billionaire, telling Italian reporters that his membership “all the time revered the foundations.”
However movies on social media depicting less-than-quiet sit-down dinners have brought about an uproar.
In a single, a train of women transport champagne bottles loaded with sparklers by thumping music and a sweaty crowd. Nearly no person is carrying a masks.
In a social media put up a couple of days earlier than his coronavirus analysis, Mr. Briatore, 70, attacked a virologist for talking badly about his membership, saying that such scientists had “terrorized Italy.”
“Allow us to work,” Briatore stated in one other put up on Might 31. “The coronavirus offers insurance coverage for this authorities, they’re scaring everybody, and since all the pieces has been taking place since June, they begin scaring folks for September,” he added.
He additionally cited a remark made by his physician, Alberto Zangrillo, who has stated, “Covid clinically not exists; somebody is terrorizing the nation.” (Dr. Zangrillo later stated that he had been talking loosely and that he believes the virus is actual.)
Dr. Zangrillo can be the non-public physician of Mr. Berlusconi, who’s in a Milan hospital the place his situation is claimed to be bettering.
Mr. Briatore visited Mr. Berlusconi at his Villa Certosa on Aug. 11.
“Go to to a particular pal,” Mr. Briatore titled an Instagram post documenting the luxurious seaside property. Within the put up, Mr. Briatore pays tribute, saying he discovered Mr. Berlusconi in “nice kind.”
“A heartfelt thanks,” Mr. Berlusconi replied.
After making a political profession out of victimization, Mr. Berlusconi this week appeared to have discovered a once-in-a-lifetime enemy: his coronavirus an infection.
In a name on Tuesday to members of his get together, Forza Italia, he stated that hoped to return to political battle and that, out of all of the hundreds of assessments carried out on the Milan hospital for the reason that begin of the epidemic, “I’ve come out within the prime 5 by way of the power of the virus.”
“I’m combating to beat this infernal illness,” Mr. Berlusconi added, “It’s very ugly.”
