On February 1, 2020 Italy launched their “Hug a Chinese” campaign. China was reported to have reached out to the Italian government to help with Chinese relations and so launched “Hug a Chinese” day, where “well put together” videos were aired!
At the time thousands of Chinese immigrants from the city of Wuhan traveled to Northern Italy for work, the very area hardest hit with COVID-19 deaths.
21 days after the campaign launch on February 21, 2020, Italy reported it’s first official COVID-19 patient in a little town near Milan, in the northern region of Lombardy. [1]
In retrospect a study by the National Cancer Institute (INT) of the Italian city of Milan showed that SARS-CoV-2 was spreading in Northern Italy as early as September 2019.