The Covid-19 Is Confining Italian People to Their Houses

These days are tough for me and my country. Personally, I feel a bit worn out. Maybe, for my two surgeries and the blood transfusion I had last January; maybe, because after that, I couldn’t do actually anything at all for a month because the surgeon ordered it; maybe, because my area, the notorious Veneto, got under the attack of the Covid-19 and we had to quickly adapt to new rules; or maybe, because my beloved dog, Elmo, my truest friend, passed away suddenly last 4th March.

Those facts are summing up to make me feel heavy like the carp of my poem, about which you can read quickly down here, though, I don’t consider it such a great poem … it only expresses perfectly my present mood, if you were interested.

The Carp

After my surgeries, I was going back to writing, but I was lacking every strength and concentration. My ability to focus on simple thoughts was gone. I was weak and I decided to let it go for a while. At the end of February, the end of my immobilization post-surgery, I was finally feeling better again, but the arrival of the Coronavirus in Italy, brought a big change and restrictions to any possible social life. Actually, impossible, as it turned out to be.

The fact that Elmo died unexpectedly was the most devastating event for me and my family. He died last Wednesday. We are still getting conscience that he is not here anymore. We are still mourning him and getting adjusted to his anguishing absence.

Then, last Saturday night, an unidentified somebody sent out, through the social channels, an unauthorized draft of the new coming law, drawn to fight the spreading of the Covid-19 in the country. This draft spread in North of Italy unofficially in a matter of minutes, sparking panic and hysteria among people in Lombardy and Veneto.

This law draft was saying that the government was going to close Lombardy and three cities in Veneto — Venice, Padua, Treviso — and other provinces, forbidding every movement even within the cities and regional limits.

The result was that all people started to call the authorities with many questions about it. They wanted to know at what time the new rules were starting or if they could go back home because, as it was the weekend, many were still skiing in the Alps or having their best time on the beaches at the Venetian Lido. Personally, I had to travel from Treviso, for 2 hours to go to fetch my daughter at her friends’ place in Lombardy and more two hours to come back, fearing a barrier at the highway exit.

On that same Sunday, I also had a plan. I was to drive in the afternoon to Mantua, for a dinner with my old friends to celebrate three 50th-birthdays along with the International Women’s Day, but the new law orders every bar or restaurant to close at 6 pm. Therefore, we had to cancel our dinner and postpone it to a later date.

We were all frantically sharing news and information, as soon as we got them, to facilitate family and friends to move in this surreal situation. My daughter even sighed saying that luckily Elmo had died before this situation erupted because, otherwise, we couldn’t have even buried him in our country home, in Lombardy, where his sister and other beloved pets were resting.

In all this confusion, public transports, like trains and buses, were leaving these red zone areas over full with passengers escaping to the South. Some had simply jumped on with no ticket whatsoever. You can read a bit more about all that happened in my article:

Italy Is Red Zone: Draconic Measures To Fight the Covid-19

Not Many Solutions to Win the Covid-19, Only, Avoid Any Contact

Today, I went for the groceries in my neighborhood and it all felt weird. Streets with sporadic cars and almost no pedestrians on sidewalks. It was so silent that I even heard a woodpecker pecking fast. In my favorite bar, there were only two elderly men, each at their own table. I sat for my cappuccino at a third table because, in the new law, customers cannot approach the bartender and need to sit and wait to be served. In the supermarket, customers were keeping one meter from each others and, at the checkout, I had to wait that the previous person had collected the shopping bags, before I could place my own stuff on the conveyor belt.

With these new strict measures, we cannot do much. The I stay at home general rule makes every one of us wondering about what we can and cannot do. One thing I know for sure is how vaguely I feel insecure about what will happen tomorrow. How long will it all last? The new law signed by our Premier Giuseppe Conte, last Monday, declaring all Italy Red Zone, is supposed to last only until the 3rd April. However, voices are saying that it will be prolonged for another entire month or longer.

Not that I was planning any trip or tour anywhere, but the simple notion of being unable to go anywhere, if I’d wanted to, is unnerving and disheartening. My father and my brother live in Lombardy and I can’t go to visit them unless an urgency would pop up and, really, I don’t want any emergency affecting them.

As my husband is Dutch, before the situation worsened, we were thinking to fly to the Netherlands to stay with his parents for a few weeks because the schools are closed and our children are studying with their professors via digital platforms. We didn’t have to stay here for some special reasons. We were just thinking to stay a few weeks with my in-laws because we are so far from them that, usually, we manage to go there only once a year, so we thought it was a good occasion. But not. All Europe began talking about the great danger of Coronavirus spread by the Italians, as the ominous infectors, so we felt better by staying at home.

About this last point, I’d like to enlighten that Germany discovered that a Covid-19-positive Asian business woman, from Shanghai, landed in München for a business meeting with a 33 years old German man, who got infected as well, on the 24th January. From this viral strain derives also the Italian one.

I Stay at Home, You Should Too

In Italy, at the moment, we are fighting hard the Covid-19. All Italians are called to do their share. We are a great people in the sense that we become very rigorous, when we perceive the seriousness of the situation and we understand that it’s not time to joke anymore. This is the phase we are facing now. No kidding anymore, just following the rule I stay at home, #iorestoacasa.

In the end, it’s not important how I feel because it’s exactly as any other Italian is feeling right now. We need to do what is requested by the government because keeping the distance is the only real possibility against this contagious virus. It passes through the mucous membranes of mouth, nose, and eyes. And it spreads very fast.

Indeed, Italians are showing to the world how tough and resilient they are. Probably they are surprising themselves, too. The world is watching us and we are preparing to strike down the Covid-19, which calculations and algorithms predict it will reach its pitch on the 15th March, as Veneto Governor Luca Zaia was saying yesterday in a live press conference via Facebook. He was vehement while warning: Stay at home, stay at home!

And I repeat for all of you who are reading here, to stay at home and keep a meter of distance from everybody, even if you are a young person because not following the rules, it will make you responsible for the infection of the elderly and the immune-depressed people of your family.

Thank you for reading! This is my Raffa’s Newsletter email, if you like to keep in touch with me: [email protected]