(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 7 - Oscar-winning Italian composer Nicola
Piovani has criticised anti-vaxxers and the way the media
handled the issue of COVID-19-related measures as he prepares to
star at Expo 2020 Dubai for three nights this week.
Piovani, who won the 1999 Best Original Dramatic Score Oscar for
the soundtrack to Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful, is
staging a show entitled 'La Musica è Pericolosa - Concerted'
(Music Is Dangerous) at the World Fair from December 8 to 10.
"They talk about coronavirus denial as if it were a big problem,
but the real problems are elsewhere, - the variants, getting
vaccines to the third world and areas it has not reached,"
Piovani said.
"In this case, I don't think the media is doing good when it
comes to progress in the fight against the virus and I don't
think it's just a problem in Italy.
"The comparison made (by anti-vaxxers) between the vaccine and
Nazi death camps is ridiculous, idiotic, but it got visibility.
"I think we should reflect on this.
"What happened with the pandemic touched me, like it touched
everyone in the period of the lockdown, where the news was a
bulletin of death, it was a terrible period.
"Then it touched me on a personal level. I had a very bad
experience. COVID cost me over five weeks in isolation in
hospital.
"In many ways I was strengthened by the experience.
"The first is disdain for deniers.
"The second is love for important things and the desire to let
go of the superfluous aspects of live, including in music.
"Now we are going through an another phase but there is a black
spot, the anti-vaxxers, because there are not many of them; 96%
of Italian people are in favour of vaccination". (ANSA).