‘Prepare yourselves’ – Tralee man talks about life under virus lockdown in Italy
WITH the news on Monday night that the whole of Italy was to be put under lockdown, we reached out to Kerry people living in the country to hear of their experiences. Tralee man Rory O’Halloran is one of those who got in touch.
‘Prepare yourselves’ – these were the words of Rory, who lives with his family in the North of Italy and has dealt with the COVID-19 restrictions for the past three weeks now.
Rory has been based in the country for the past nine years and is currently living with his wife and two kids near Parma.
Speaking to The Kerryman,
Rory described to us what life is like living under the strict conditions imposed by the government.
“It’s developing all the time really. We went into lockdown two weeks ago, so this is the third week,” he said.
“The bars, restaurants, pizzerias, all that stuff, they’re closing at 6pm every evening. Museums, art galleries, they’re all closed. Sporting events, gyms, swimming pools, they’re all gone,” he said on Tuesday morning.
Rory said that the mood amongst his friends and work colleagues is one of nerves, adding that people are taking it very seriously.
“There’s a lot of nervousness now. You can’t cough or sneeze in public, and if you’ve even feint signs of a cold, you have to stay at home, you can’t go to work, you just have to close yourself off in the house,” he said.
Luckily Rory, who works in the logistics sector, has not had to take any time off work yet, but he said that it’s only matter of time before all the factories are closed as well.
As for day-to-day life where he’s living, he said that there is nothing outside of work and home.
“There is nothing day today. You have work and you go home. There’s nothing else. Everything else is closed...You need special permission to do anything. To come to work, I need a message that work sent me, I need my contract of work with me at all times in case I am stopped so I can prove that I need to be travelling,” he said.
“I can’t go outside my area, I have to go shopping in the nearest shop. The supermarkets will leave in just a few people at a time.
“So you have to queue outside the shop and then, when you get in, you have to stand one and a half metres away from the next person,” he said.
As for how he spends his evenings and weekends, he said that, thankfully – by the time he gets home from work, has dinner, puts the kids to bed and showers – there’s not much time to kill. At the weekends, he takes his kids – aged three and four respectively – to the woods and to parks, where they can get some fresh air.
Rory went on to say that the health system in the country is “on its knees” and on “the point of collapse”.
“There are no more beds. There’s no more spaces in intensive care. They literally have to choose who to save and who not to save because they’re under so much pressure,” he said.
Because he’s been living there for nine years, Rory has no plans to return to Ireland any time soon, but he did say that, from what he’s seeing, he believes Ireland needs to deal with the situation faster.
“Prepare yourselves is all I can say,” he said.