I haven't been posting on here since forever, but today I am back on the keyboard to share with all my international friends a problem that it is becoming wider and wider in my home country and that it's causing a lot of problems. I want you all to know from an "insider" because I feel it's important to be aware of what is going on.
My today's topic is the new COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, a new virus that first showed up in the Hubei province in China and it is now a worldwide threat not because it's lethal for everyone, but because we don't exactly know what we are facing, the vaccine doesn't exist yet and it is very contagious.
Italy it is right now the third country for number of cases and this datas are growing up constantly, so many provinces are in quarantine, hand sanitizer and masks are impossible to find, emergency numbers completely crowded. These are all datas that are anyone can easily find online, but what it's more rare to find it's how people are reacting.
There are cities that completely stopped, first of all Milan, the economic heart of our country, it is desolated, schools and unis are closed, airports are empty and the atmosphere is almost surreal. I have been home from school for two weeks now and they won't open till April 3rd at least. We are told not to hug people, big thing in Italian culture, or handshake, minimum distance between people has to be at least one meter.
I see fear in people eyes because numbers are constantly going up and so is the death rate (I have to underline the fact that the average age in my country is 65 years old), government has not taken the best decisions at the beginning and spend time at home, alone for most of the time, can become alienating. I live in one of those that are defined as "red zone" which means that the coronavirus is a problem. A very serious problem. The main problem is actually that, due to the velocity of the spreading, a lot of people got sick together and there are not enough beds in intensive care, which could eventually lead to something way worse: someone may have to decide who lives and who dies. All the containment measures taken are just to assure that not everyone will get sick simultaneously.
All our everyday schedule is messed up, a lot of things that we used to do frequently are now prohibited like going to clubs or bars, which, it can sound crazy, I know, is a good outlet for all the stress. As soon as a new cases pops up they try to figure out all the people they got in contact with and these unlucky people have to stay closed in a room for a not well defined time (up to now is 14 day) period and wait without other human contact.
I see humanity slowly fading, and so is solidarity, the infector hunt is now started (as it would be possible) and racism towards those from china is becoming scary, experts say to stay home, do not travel and try to leave the house just for basic needs, but yesterday night hundreds and hundreds of people were rushing to the Milan train station to catch the last train to the south of the country and leave the red zone bringing with them the virus. The thing is: we are all the same before death, the idea of leaving this earth makes us do crazy thing and we become selfish, we hold on to life and hope as we never did before and we are ready to let others down in order to save ourselves. That's it. We are all scared, but if we understand that selflessness could be the solution now the coronavirus would keep spreading but we would live this situation in a happier way, because we would face things together and having each others backs.
