PANIC BUYING HAS STOPPED. NOW SMALL QUEUES FORM. QUIET, ORDERLY ... AND PATIENT
‘EVERYTHING will be OK’ is now the mantra in Italy, where there are no scenes of manic buying, but the eerie silence that has fallen over Florence is without precedent since war times, according to our writer in the Renaissance city
WHAT a week. Last Friday saw anaesthetists and ICU doctors write to the government that they would be keeping life support for people with the best chance of surviving. Saturday came the leak of the decree that would send Lombardy, 14 other provinces and 16million people into lockdown.
Across the Red Zone, many people packed bags, gave their plants and cats to the neighbours, and squeezed onto trains heading south to beat the government order. Sunday came the lockdown itself. That night was eerie and oppressive.
In a city steeped in siege, plague, famine and occupation, there was a sense that anything could happen.
Monday? We wondered what was next. When would it come? We didn’t have to wait. That night, prime minister Giuseppe Conte announced that now the whole of Italy was going into lockdown. Almost everything was already shut down. But now bars and restaurants would close at 6pm.
Sixty million people were to stay home. We could come out for work, medical reasons, essentials such as food shopping. Nothing else. Everyone was to keep at least a metre distance.
The hashtag #iorestoacasa – I’m Staying Home – broke out in a rash across social media and shop windows in the neighbourhood.
But there was more to come. And quickly. On Wednesday night, Conte was back, and with a more dramatic message. The health of Italians comes first. Therefore, all non-essential services were closing immediately: shops, hairdressers, bars, restaurants.
Only supermarkets, chemists, tabacchi where people buy bus tickets and news-stands (not everyone has the web) would stay open. Public transport would run. The ‘stay home’ order meant exactly that. Get in. Stay in. That we would be able to embrace each other again, but for now we had to isolate.
Self-certification downloaded from the web giving our reason for being out in public was already required. Now, it would be strongly enforced. On Wednesday, I had already seen police stopping cars and pedestrians. A patrol car stopped to tell two women chatting on the pavement to move apart and keep the security distance.
At the chemist, we had to queue outside in the street at least a metre apart. Only one customer could enter at a time.
But there’s an upside. Florentines, notoriously closed, are nodding, smiling. They are saying, ‘Good luck, take care, let’s hope that all will be well.’
The message, ‘Andra tutto bene’ that some lovely person put on every door of the neighbourhood on Day One is national. In windows, on balconies and doors the message is everywhere: Everything will be OK. Florence is divided into ancient neighbourhoods and on Wednesday, the Bianchi put up signs on all the doors, telling people who were afraid to come out that volunteers would get their shopping and their meds, and bring food if necessary. The message ended: ‘In these difficult days, we must take care of each other.’ This neighbourhood is a stronghold of the old Partigiani (partisans) in World War Two. Community, solidarity and courage are thriving.
The supermarket calm of lockdown Day One continues after the second emergency order. The shelves are full. No panic buying. Someone who went shopping yesterday told me customers were entering in small groups, others queuing in the street, keeping their distance. Quiet, orderly, patient.
By contrast, from Dublin, my sister told me her supermarket was a cross between World War Z and Christmas Eve, only without the zombies, elves and George Michael. On Wednesday night after the second emergency order, I tried to do a shop online. The earliest delivery date was March 26, with a message from the big supermarket saying they were sorry, but in these exceptional times, they were working flat out.
JUST before that second order came the news that 196 people had died in the previous 24 hours. Over a thousand were in ICU. The 10% ICU rate is persistent and worrying. As is the news that medicalstaff infection rate is 12%.
Italian healthcare is superb even if politicians have wounded it with cuts. Yet every day come the stories from the frontline. The exhaustion of the doctors and nurses, the endless Covid-19 positives, the need for ICU, sub-ICU, ventilators, new doctors to replace the ones who are infected or in protective quarantine.
Yet, up to Wednesday’s order, some politicians were holding out. One repeated the slogan ‘Italy Won’t Stop’. The leading virologist Roberto Burioni told her: ‘If Italy does not stop, the virus will stop Italy.’ He said close-down means close-down. Stay at home means stay at home. That those who were spouting the meaningless ‘Italy Won’t Stop’ had already caused grave damage. And they have. The positive cases and death rates rise daily.
Immediately after the second order, my son and I did a quick dash with essentials to someone living on their own.
We were worried we would be stopped by the police, and asked for our self-certification.
But at 11 o’clock there wasn’t a soul out. Usually, Italians only start to go out around then. Our footsteps and voices sounded giddy in the silence. We hurried along streets full of old plague hospitals, pilgrim hospices on the route to Rome, now apartments, packed with people glued to the national broadcaster RAI and SkyTG24. Florence is the cradle of the Renaissance, yet here were the treasures of centuries, Michelangelo’s David, the cathedral, the Uffizi gallery, the Medici palaces, all closed, closed, closed, by something we cannot even see.
We have decided to keep strict seclusion now. It is right for the community, right for ourselves. We will leave the house only for essential shopping. Even today we are keeping an eye on the amount of milk we are using.
If everyone does as they are told and stays off the streets, there is a chance to slow the spread of the virus. We will do our best. Help our best. Hope for the best that the signs hung like prayer flags along the Italian peninsula and islands are right. Andra tutto bene. Everything will be OK.