Starting on the first day of school, carabinieri will enter preschools and elementary schools in northern Palermo to identify pupils who are not up to date with mandatory vaccinations. Officers will obtain enrollment lists and, together with the schools and the ASP (Azienda Sanitaria Provinciale, or Provincial Health Authority), verify the children’s health status. The intervention, described as “extremely urgent,” was ordered by the minors’ prosecutor Claudia Caramanna following the death of Anna Rosa Bartolotta, the four-year-old unvaccinated child who was given a diagnosis of diphtheria. Before all aspects of the case have been clarified, the tragedy has become the pretext for launching an emergency operation.
The operation will begin on September 15, the date set by the Sicilian Region for the start of classes. Enrolled students are registered on the ministerial Sidi portal; schools transmit the lists to the ASP, and the health authority cross-checks them against the vaccination registry, returning the names of those not in compliance. Attention will initially focus on northern Palermo, but the ASP holds data for the entire metropolitan area. Also under scrutiny by the prosecutor’s office is a system used by some families to delay compliance: submitting an appointment booking, not having the child vaccinated, and then repeating the procedure later. “It may work at preschool, but in first grade the checks are strict,” explained Giusto Catania, principal of the Giuliana Saladino comprehensive institute. The Lorenzin law stipulates that compliance with vaccination requirements is a condition for access to nurseries and preschools; from age six onward, the pupil may attend classes, while parents face administrative fines ranging from €100 to €500 (approximately $110 to $550). If forms of “serious negligence” are established, such as failure to undergo pediatric check-ups, the consequences could extend as far as loss of parental custody. The checks, therefore, will not concern only the regularity of vaccination certificates but will also serve to identify possible situations of “health abandonment.”
The climate that developed during the pandemic thus seems to be reemerging, this time in school classrooms, through procedures that also find full support from part of the press. La Repubblica, for example, presents the initiative using a formula that closely echoes the language of the Covid emergency: “A virtuous machine has been set in motion to counter no-vax conspiracy theories in the protection of public health.” Giovanna Perricone, the regional ombudsman for children and adolescents, speaks of a “comprehensive and strategic operation”: from the checks, she explains, may follow reports on parents, fines, and the taking into care of families. Since “we cannot close social media,” she adds, it would also be necessary to counter their influence by disseminating messages on vaccines in a widespread manner, even through videos projected in supermarkets. The goal, in short, goes beyond verifying compliance with the law: it is about policing public space, re-educating parents so as to crack “conspiracy ideas.”
The Palermo case thus reproduces the polarization mechanism already tested during the pandemic. Diverse situations are folded into the undifferentiated category of “no-vax conspiracy theories.” Beyond the specific incident, the label allows attention to shift from the merits of individual cases to the alleged irresponsibility of families and to present as necessary an operation involving schools, the ASP, the prosecutor’s office, and law enforcement. Anna Rosa’s death has become the starting point for blanket checks and a cultural campaign extended even to supermarkets. The entry of carabinieri into schools is thus normalized as a tool of health protection, while the invocation of “conspiracy theories” once again serves to preemptively neutralize doubts and possible objections regarding the proportionality of the measures adopted.
Hellbound and Down 