An actor who appeared on Italian mafia crime drama Gomorrah was forced to plead for help on Facebook after being trapped with his sister’s dead body for 36 hours while quarantined at his Naples home over coronavirus fears.
Luca Franzese, who played a member of the ‘fiarmante’ gang in mob TV show Gomorrah, has released a series of impassioned videos, appealing for funeral services to pick up the corpse of his sister, Teresa Franzese, 47, who was tested positive for the coronavirus after her death on Saturday.
Teresa suffered from a form of epilepsy and had developed symptoms of the killer COVID-19 virus earlier in the week, Luca said.
In the video, Luca said: ‘I am making this video for the good of Italy, for the good of Naples.
‘My sister died last night, probably because of the virus, and I’ve been waiting for answers since last night.’
He added that he had to force medical personnel to come to his house to test his sister. Luca was unaware that she was infected until after the tests were done.
Luca told his followers that his sister’s infection wasn’t detected until after her death in their home in Naples, Italy on Saturday
Teresa Franzese, pictured in an undated photograph, had epilepsy but was otherwise in good health, her brother said. He said he had to force Italian medical personnel to test her once she died, and she came up positive for COVID-19
‘I’ve had to put myself in self-isolation,’ he said.
‘I might have the virus.
‘To keep my sister alive, I tried to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation and no one cared, no one is calling me.
‘We are ruined, Italy has abandoned us,’ Franzese said in the video.
Luca’s whole family were in the house when Teresa died, including relatives susceptible to the fatal consequences of the disease.
Her two elderly parents have now been tested for the coronavirus and await the results.
In a video released today, Luca said another three people in his family had tested positive.
‘The nightmare goes on’, he said.
Luca Franzese (pictured), an actor who featured in Italian hit mob show Gomorrah, appealed to Italian authorities on Sunday evening after he was forced to stay in a room with the body of his sister Teresa, 47, who tested positive for the coronavirus after her death
A report from local media suggested that officials were in touch with the Franzese family from 8 March, trying to find a funeral home for Teresa.
Francesco Emilio Borrelli, a local councillor and member of the Regional Health Commission for Campania, told Al Jazeera the uniqueness of the case caused ‘confusion on what to do’ with the body.
Teresa was the first person in Italy to die at home from the coronavirus, Borrelli said.
He added that neighbours are delivering food to the family while they self-isolate but that there are hygiene concerns, as authorities have failed to collect their trash.
‘It’s getting unhygienic and we don’t know what to do about it. Someone needs to help them,’ he said.
Teresa’s body was eventually collected by a local funeral home after Luca’s video went viral.
Luca, pictured in an undated photograph, said in another video today that three other members of his family are now infected at the home in Naples
They buried the body without any other members of the family present.
Campania, which houses Naples, has largely swerved the surge in coronavirus cases in the country. With just 122 confirmed cases, Teresa was the fourth fatal victim, Al Jazeera reported.
The majority of cases have been detected in the country’s wealthier north, but the effects of the virus have spread throughout Italy.
With more than 10,000 coronavirus infections and soaring deaths among its ageing population, the economic and logistical impact of the outbreak is beginning to show.
Looking to prevent a flare up in the southern city of Messina in Sicily, the mayor said he would introduce a curfew and allow only food stores to remain open. Cateno De Luca said there were only 10 intensive care beds in the area and they could not cope with any mass infections.
Gualtieri said that Italy, which has the second highest debt pile in Europe after Greece, might need help from EU funds to take some of the burden off its public finances.