![]() ![]() ![]() But doctors like Di Franco worry the coronavirus will arrive with force there, too, because thousands of people tried to flee to the south when the restrictions on the north were introduced, either to return home or to skirt the initial lockdown. In southern Italy, the outbreak is not as intense. Because you hear the ambulances all day.” “It can happen to my neighbor - it doesn’t happen to my neighbor, fortunately. “You really think, ‘Wow, this is happening for real,’” he added. “You see these people with the white protective dress and all the masks and the gloves and everything it seems like it’s a movie,” he said. Piero Cruciatti/AFP via Getty ImagesĪndrea is a 28-year-old banker in Bergamo, a city in the Lombardy region that is at the core of the coronavirus outbreak in the region and all of Italy. The region has become the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy. Undertakers unload a coffin from a hearse on March 16, 2020, at the Monumental cemetery of Bergamo, Lombardy, in northern Italy. Though it is one of Italy’s richest regions, with a strong health care system, the situation still became catastrophic as more and more people sought treatment. The province of Lombardy became overwhelmed. The “don’t worry” phase perhaps ended sooner in northern Italy, where the outbreak first took hold. “Italy has already paid a very high price for going through all 3 phases.” “Phase #1: Don’t worry Phase #2: Worry Phase #3: Stay home,” Di Franco wrote in an email. What a shutdown feels like, from Bergamo to PalermoĪntonino Di Franco, a 34-year-old cardiologist near Palermo, Sicily, told me his colleague described Italy as going through three phases. “Io resto a casa” is the new motto: I’m staying home. Though there is not always someone to greet right now. An entire nation has abandoned expressive greetings: no hugging or kissing or handshakes. ![]() Stores limit the number of people who can shop inside at once, so people wait in line, putting one meter’s distance between each other. Still, it helps, for now, to have an end date to believe in.įor now, Italians are following the rules, and the rules have radically transformed life. Italy’s measures are in place until at least April 3, but not everyone I spoke to expects it to be over then. How long this way of life will last is still eerily uncertain. But the perception for the future is that have a government that understood, before the other ones in Europe, that this is a more serious thing than the normal flu.” ![]() “Of course it’s a lot different than before. “This new way of living your life,” Marco Castronovo, a 35-year-old engineer who lives in Milan, said. Italy was the first Western democracy to adopt such expansive rules, a foreshadowing of what was to come, in some form, everywhere else. It’s happening in the United States, too, with cities like San Francisco ordering residents to stay at home. Spain and France have adopted similar shutdowns. Italy is the epicenter of the outbreak in Europe, with more than 31,000 Covid-19 cases as of March 18, and more than 2,500 deaths. This is Italy, now in its second week of nationwide emergency measures that severely restrict domestic travel and ban public gatherings, a blanket decree intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic there. Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images Christian Minelli/NurPhoto via Getty Images The nearly deserted Piazza della Repubblica in Turin. The Piazza di Spagna, a popular tourist destination in Rome, stands mostly empty. “It’s a ghost city,” Ylenia Stanzione, a 38-year-old flight attendant from Gallarate, near the Milan Malpensa Airport, told me. Police across the country are checking to see that people who are out have the required paperwork, are going where they say they are.Īll of this makes the outside world mostly quiet, except for the ambulance sirens. A walk or solo run is permitted, though it can sometimes depend on the cop. Trips to the grocery store, or maybe to walk the dog, are the rare escapes. That part feels mostly normal, except that all the packages and bags brought inside are now wiped down and disinfected first. Meals break up the day - good ones, with fresh food and wine. Everything is sanitized over and over and over again. Those who must go to work wear masks at their desks and use gloves to handle items, even the coffee machine. Schools and most offices are closed, but there are still lessons to plan, homework to do, and deadlines to meet. Friends talk more on video, a thing they rarely used to do since everyone would see each other at the bar. The days fill with work and WhatsApp chats. ![]()
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