MILAN In February, he said the directors of the nursing home where he worked kept him from wearing a mask, fearing it would scare patients and their families. In March, he became infected and spoke out about the coronavirus spreading through the home. In May, he was fired amid claims that he had damaged the companys image.

Hamala Diop, a 25-year-old medical assistant, challenged the decision in a lawsuit that was first heard in court on Monday. The proceedings will raise the issue of whether whistle-blowers have paid a price in raising alarms about dangerous conditions at medical facilities.

After successfully lowering the curve of new cases after a devastating initial outbreak, Italy is now bracing for a potential second wave.

The country, with the oldest population in Europe, was affected especially deeply by the coronavirus, and nearly half the infections reported in April happened in nursing homes, according to the Italian National Institute of Health. The breadth of the outbreak put the management of nursing homes under judicial and media scrutiny.

As the country fears the emergence of new clusters, some worry that Mr. Diops experience could have a chilling effect on those seeking to raise early warnings about potentially dangerous behaviors.

Nobody protected us from catching the virus, Mr. Diop said, and nobody protected us from getting fired.

On Feb. 26, as officials had already sealed off towns in the northern region of Lombardy, a director at the Palazzolo Institute of the Don Gnocchi Foundation, a nursing home in Milan where Mr. Diop worked, walked to the ward where Mr. Diop and his colleagues were tidying up the dining room. Mr. Diop said in an interview the director told them not to wear masks, that the building was safe and that they should not scare the residents. When presented with this account, the foundation said that they had always rejected any accusation that the employees were kept from using masks as serious and baseless.

For more than two weeks, while the coronavirus epidemic was exploding in the region, Mr. Diop said that he and his colleagues washed, changed and fed the residents without wearing masks or other protection. More than 150 residents would die in March and April, according to Milans prosecutors investigating the case. Asked if that figure was accurate, nursing home officials declined to comment.

They watched TV and saw what was going on outside, he said of the residents, but I had to reassure them and tell them that the virus will never come into our safe place.

The human resources director encouraged managers to place on leave employees who polemicized or insisted on wearing protective gear even when they are not required to, according to an email submitted as evidence. Mr. Diop said that he received his first mask on March 12, when more than 15,000 people in the country had already been infected and days after the government had imposed nationwide restrictions on movement and work.

That same day, Mr. Diop fell ill. A week later, his swab test came back positive for the virus. His mother, who also works at the home, was infected, too.

Eleven days after becoming sick, he filed his complaint along with 17 colleagues, most of whom also had the virus. In it, they argued that management had covered up the first coronavirus cases among the staff and prevented them from using the necessary protective gear, contributing to the spread in the nursing home.

Updated July 7, 2020

The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. Its unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.

Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

A commentary published this month on the website of the British Journal of Sports Medicine points out that covering your face during exercise comes with issues of potential breathing restriction and discomfort and requires balancing benefits versus possible adverse events. Masks do alter exercise, says Cedric X. Bryant, the president and chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise, a nonprofit organization that funds exercise research and certifies fitness professionals. In my personal experience, he says, heart rates are higher at the same relative intensity when you wear a mask. Some people also could experience lightheadedness during familiar workouts while masked, says Len Kravitz, a professor of exercise science at the University of New Mexico.

The steroid, dexamethasone, is the first treatment shown to reduce mortality in severely ill patients, according to scientists in Britain. The drug appears to reduce inflammation caused by the immune system, protecting the tissues. In the study, dexamethasone reduced deaths of patients on ventilators by one-third, and deaths of patients on oxygen by one-fifth.

The coronavirus emergency relief package gives many American workers paid leave if they need to take time off because of the virus. It gives qualified workers two weeks of paid sick leave if they are ill, quarantined or seeking diagnosis or preventive care for coronavirus, or if they are caring for sick family members. It gives 12 weeks of paid leave to people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose child care provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus. It is the first time the United States has had widespread federally mandated paid leave, and includes people who dont typically get such benefits, like part-time and gig economy workers. But the measure excludes at least half of private-sector workers, including those at the countrys largest employers, and gives small employers significant leeway to deny leave.

So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was very rare, but she later walked back that statement.

Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus whether its surface transmission or close human contact is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.

If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

If youve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

We are their arms and their legs and they all become like our grandpas and grandmas, Mr. Diop said of the residents. And they kept us from protecting them, he said in reference to the management.

In a statement, the foundations lawyers said the home had followed the instructions of the Italian National Institute of Health on the use of masks, and that communications about the infections among workers took place according to privacy laws.

After news of the lawsuit was published by Italian newspapers, dozens of victims families filed similar complaints. Milanese prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the homes management. On May 7, Mr. Diop was fired by the cooperative that employed him, a subcontractor for the foundation, for talking to reporters about the lawsuit, and many of his colleagues have also been transferred or dismissed.

Mr. Diop challenged the decision, and his lawyer, Romolo Reboa, argues in court filings that Italian and European laws on whistle-blowers should protect workers who raise alarms about situations that put lives at risk. Mr. Reboa cited a similar case of a nurse in Rome who was fired after anonymously speaking on the radio about the lack of masks in his hospital.

In nursing homes, the politics of Covid was if you speak, you get sanctioned, Mr. Reboa said. And this created a climate of intimidation that had a direct impact on the number of deaths.

Mr. Diop, originally from Mali, lives with his parents and two siblings in Cormano, a small town north of Milan. He said that losing his job was a serious financial setback and that he was worried he would not find new work given his record.

While he had expected to face some consequences for his actions, he said he did not think he would lose his job, since the government had imposed a freeze on layoffs during the emergency and health care workers were particularly in demand.

We only are heroes when they like it, he said.

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A Health Worker Raised Alarms About the Coronavirus. Then He Lost His Job. - The New York Times