ATLANTE COVID-19 GEOGRAFIE DEL CONTAGIO IN ITALIA

Piedmont. The relevance of proximity and density in the spatial incidence of the epidemic The paper analyzes the evolution of the Covid-19 epidemic in Piedmont, one of the regions most affected in the first wave. The first part of the work offers a look at the main regional characteristics relating to the demographic and settlement structure, the economic organization, the mobility, the air quality and the health organization. The resulting framework is that of a complex region, composed of an articulated set of local systems with specific socio-economic identities, variously connected by local interactions and, for the most part, with a high level of international openness. In the second part, instead, the space-time dynamics of the epidemic are reconstructed, highlighting in particular the proximity effect of the contagion with respect to the Lombard epicenter. The final focus deals with the incidence of density in the spread of the virus, leading to the consideration that the demographic concentrations were not a fundamental determinant in the spread of the epidemic.