Voices from a country in lockdown
Just over three weeks ago, Italy had only three confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARSCOV-2 virus. By the end of this week, that number had spiked to more than 15,000. With over 1,000 dead from the disease, Italy has become the new global epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To combat the spread of the virus, the Italian government has instituted a rolling series of lockdowns and quarantines, beginning in the most-infected areas in the north and gradually spreading to encompass the whole country. No advanced democracy has ever experienced a national shutdown on this scale. For Canadians, it’s a situation that is almost impossible to comprehend and a vision of what could be coming soon.
This week, National Post spoke to people about life under quarantine in Italy. The situation on the ground there is fluid. These conversations provide a snapshot of the moments they took place. All have been edited for grammar, length and clarity.
Cristina Higgins is an American academic living in Bergamo — in the heart of the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy — with her husband and three children. Earlier this week she wrote a Facebook post about the gravity of the situation there that went viral. She spoke to National Post on Thursday.
Usually the obituaries are two pages every day. Now they’re eight, at least. The crematorium has been working 24/7 for three or four days. It has a line of bodies outside. It can’t meet the demand. There’s a local town here, at the hospital, there are 10 ambulances waiting outside because there are no rooms, there is no space in the ICU.
There are so many things that you think are impossible that have happened. And they’ve happened so fast. And yet, despite everything the government has done, they still don’t think it’s enough. The cops are going around, they’re blocking the roads, they’re giving out tickets. So they are controlling it. But I’m living now in a city where the cops are roaming the streets and controlling who’s in and out. I mean, this is Italy.
It’s the third day and we’ve settled into a rhythm: wake up, breakfast, kids go do their homework, lunch and then we play games. The teachers have been great and the kids are pretty happy, I have to say. I mean, they understand that this is happening. But kids live in the present.
What I’ve noticed is over the days, every once in a while, one of them has a question. They want clarity on, ‘what does it mean to spread?’ ‘what is this virus?’ And I answer it. But I think they’re also really happy that we’re here. We’re playing dodge ball with them, we’re playing Monopoly with them every night. My husband is baking a cake every day with them. I mean, this does not normally happen. So the kids are really doing fantastic. But it’s day three. We’ve got another 27 days ahead of us.
I think it’s hard to explain what it’s like to be here. I feel like I’m gonna throw up all day long because I’m constantly just incredibly anxious about everything that’s going on. I’m very worried about my friends. Every day I get news of somebody who’s sick and we have weeks more of this and I just don’t know who it’s going to hit next.
The only way to stop this virus is to limit contagion. And the only way to limit contagion is for millions and millions of people to change their lives tomorrow. And I know it sounds drastic, I know it sounds impossible, but that’s what people are going to need to do.
Millions and millions of people are going to have to change their lives. I just would like people to understand that. It sounds crazy. I know it sounds crazy. But I’m trying to get people to move beyond disbelief and start going to, OK, this is happening and, and thinking about all the individual choices they need to make.
Hezar Abbas is a 22-yearold asylum-seeker originally from Pakistan. He came to Europe more than four years ago and has lived in Florence, where he works in a leather factory, for the past year and a half. He spoke to National Post on Tuesday.
My boss told me to stay home, to not come to work because I take the bus. So for the last week I’ve been home. He thinks that if someone is sick with this virus and uses the bus, I’ll get it and then, if I come to work, it will cause big problems for him.
I am worried because if I lose this job, what will I do? How will I live here without money? If it goes on like this, it will have a very bad effect on my life. My family is in Pakistan. If I lose my job, I cannot support them.
I live in an apartment with four or five friends, all from Pakistan. We are playing and talking to each other, talking to our family and stuff like that, all in our house.
They think that if we stay at home we can get out of this situation. If we don’t stay at home, it will grow. The number of cases will increase and increase.
Jake Rupert is a former newspaper reporter from Ottawa. He now operates a villa and tour company in Abruzzo, east of Rome, with his wife, Lisa Grassi-blais. He spoke to National Post on Thursday.
When this thing started in Italy, we were like, ‘I wonder if this could be a thing?’ Because our season was full. We start on March 28th and we finish this year on November 7th. And we were full. So we thought, ‘oh well we’ll see. Hopefully this doesn’t become a thing.’ And then we watched it grow and we watched it grow. And when the Italian government started putting in the quarantines earlier this week we were like, ‘OK, this is going to be a serious thing.’
Our first month of operation has been wiped off the map. We’ve cancelled everybody up until May 2nd. And then we’re just going to take a wait and see. But that doesn’t look very good either.
It’s been a bit weird. Usually, when our season is running we stay in our apartment in town, but now we’re in this great big five-bedroom villa by ourselves, just watching Netflix. I’ve been busy trying to keep the business afloat with a lot of concerned clients, but even that’s dying down. So we’re just kind of just sitting here.
No one can go in or out. The police are on the roads. Bars are closed. Restaurants are closed. I went for a little walk this morning. You could roll a bowling ball all the way down on the main street and not hit a thing. It was weird.
I’ve never been through something like this before, but I’m actually just shocked at how well everybody’s taking it. There’s no hoarding going on. People are not freaking out. It’s very orderly, which is not usually an Italian strength. The young people in town are now starting to take care of older people. They’re going around and getting them groceries and delivering them to their houses, which is an amazing thing.