IIRC Italy had a similar issue, where authorities initially tried to encourage gatherings to downplay Covid and made public events themselves for PR, there was

IIRC Italy had a similar issue, where authorities initially tried to encourage gatherings to downplay Covid and made public events themselves for PR, there was a "Milan doesn't stop" campaign, etc - while (in hindsight) those were the key weeks where very rapid spread was happening, causing thousands of deaths afterwards