CORONAVIRUS DIARY ROME’S EMPTY STREETS SHOW THE STRAIN ECONOMY WILL FACE

Every week our correspondents will bring a taste of life on their patch during the coronavirus pandemic. This week Nick Squires writes from Rome.

Monday

Rome is coming back to life but it’s a slow process. Shops, bars and restaurants were allowed to reopen on May 18 but many remain closed. The piazza in front of the Baroque Trevi Fountain would normally be packed. But I count just 16 people milling around – four are tourists and the rest are local office workers, grabbing a panino for lunch. A couple of bored soldiers pass the time by looking at young women strolling past and adjusting their red berets to just the right angle.

Tuesday

I would say 90 per cent of people out on the streets are wearing face masks. Even though the number of deaths and infections from coronavirus were never very high in the capital, people are still taking the threat very seriously. But other types of risky business – which were in abeyance during lockdown – are back with a vengeance. Outside a cafe, a young mother appears, a surgical mask pulled tightly over her mouth and nose. She vigorously rubs her hands with sanitiser gel…and then pulls out a cigarette, lights up in front of her toddler, and inhales deeply. A friend said she saw a man wearing a surgical mask with a small hole cut into it – just big enough for a ciggie.

It’s a rare privilege to see Rome this empty, its streets devoid of tourists. It’s like stepping back to the Fifties, before cheap air travel and mass tourism. Flights in and out of Italy won’t resume until mid-June. In Trastevere, the area where we live, narrow cobbled lanes that are normally bustling are almost deserted. It’s wonderful to bike around freely but I feel a surge of guilt – the city is empty because of a pandemic that has killed 33,000 people and left the economy in pieces.

Thursday

Everywhere you go there are social distancing measures in place. In bars and cafes, tape is stuck to the floor telling you where you must stand. It’s obligatory to wear a mask – even when buying a newspaper from the ubiquitous “edicola” or kiosks that sell papers, magazines, bus tickets and small toys. At least these businesses are open. Many are not, with predictions that Italy’s GDP will shrink 10 per cent this year as a

Friday

Mask wearing is being taken really seriously. A friend was on a bus today when passengers started complaining that a woman was not wearing one. The driver promptly pulled over and booted her off. While the tourist sights of Rome’s historic centre are still almost deserted, things are much busier in ordinary residential areas. I venture out for a couple of beers with a friend in Testaccio, a district along the Tiber, and the main piazza is packed – adults chatting, kids playing football or riding scooters. As I leave, I bump into the area’s biggest celebrity – a plump pink pig called Dior, owned by a middle-aged woman who trails him around on a lead. It’s nice to know the pampered porker survived the pandemic.

‘It’s a rare privilege to see Rome this empty. It’s like stepping back to the Fifties, before cheap air travel’