Starting up again

Photo source: https://www.ilpost.it/2020/05/05/notizie-martedi-5-maggio-coronavirus-italia/

Yes, Italy has begun to reopen a little. Laws are set at the national level, then governments of individual regions can set more relaxed or severe versions of those laws based on their context, such as how many cases they have and how prepared their health care system is to handle new cases.

School are definitely online for the rest of the year and wont reopen until next September or later. Street markets can open if local police monitor social distancing. I'm not tempted to go. Last week I rode by the market on my way to the grocery store and there was a super long line to get in. 

Starting yesterday we can visit close family, but not gatherings: check on your parents, but don't invite the aunts. Funerals can take place with maximum 15 people present. Manufacturing can restart. Restaurants can sell takeaway, though honestly some in our town have been doing that all along with the city government's permission. We can do sports in a larger radius from home. Theoretically we could go run or hike anywhere within regional borders, but since Lombardy is still full of infected people (we live in the hardest hit region), local government wants us to be extremely cautious. For example, our mayor said that since we have a couple of parks in our town, we can't legitimatize driving out of the city limits for exercise and would risk getting stopped and fined. No hiking in the mountains yet, my love.

Every time we leave home, we have to wear something to cover mouth and nose, and to access public transportation, we also need to wear gloves. Probably any kind of gloves are alright, but I imagine a ton of plastic is going to be dedicated to single use gloves, thrown away (recycled? Fingers crossed!), and that makes me feel sick. As we approach Summer and the weather heats up, it's going to become ever more torturous to wear the mask and gloves.

Next, starting May 18th, some more shops can open (along the lines of essential), museums, galleries, and libraries who guarantee social distancing can reopen, and professional team sports will be allowed to restart training.

From June 1st, hairdressers can reopen as well as all the other shops, cafés and restaurants.

Garden delivery

Our garden nursery delivery arrived early this morning. Ciao! Bye! I'll be in the garden until next week.

Celebrating Springtime in my backyard

Our cherry tree did it again. Fully loaded with buds, now bursting their blossoms, radiating with bees and promises of thousands of cherries.

Half mast

At noon today March 31st, our mayor invited the city to join in a moment of silence in grieving for those lost to Coronavirus, along with all other towns and cities across the country. Flags are at half mast. Our mayor then posted the somber video clip to the town facebook page. Click to watch

In our tiny town, two people have passed away and fourteen others are currently fighting it, at home (two) or in the hospital (five), or have already recovered (seven). I don't personally know them, still... feeling sad.

I really feel sad

One of the first things I read this morning was that a friend here in Europe has probably caught Coronavirus. There aren't enough tests available for him to confirm it, but he has all those symptoms (fever, headache, sore throat, passing nausea and cough). He continues to self-quarantine and wait for it to pass.

I determined to work hard today and make it a good day. I finished digging up a bed all around the periphery of our yard, placing rocks along the border; hope to finish it tomorrow. I stopped to help my husband carry in a month's worth of groceries. He had worked hard on preparing the list beforehand, gathering, buying, and bagging everything; he just prefers to get more things and go less often. I go once in awhile for a few perishable things like salad or fresh bread. Without an Italian driver's license, I can only bring what I can carry in my bike bags.

He said after having to wait a little bit at the entrance, the rest was normal. Except one odd thing was that some of the aisles were cordoned off: plants, household items and non-food baby items. So he couldn't buy glue. Some hypotheses were that it was to make people go through the store faster, or else to block purchases of unfair advantage (since other shops are forced closed). Either way it's irritating because it doesn't feel right.

The rest of the afternoon, with my head covered in henna dye, I cleaned the bathroom, started laundry, tidied the kitchen, made dinner, and ordered a gelato delivery. Only at dinner did I noticed how tired I was. Our friend lost his grandfather today to natural causes, but the family won't be able to have a normal funeral, only the closest relatives can be present when they bury his cremated remains. However, the crematoriums are backlogged until early April. My husband is now connecting with his brother (quarantined in the next town) by playing online video games together; and I check Facebook and the web, only to discover a few starling pieces of information, some terrible, some great.

The number of new Coronavirus cases and the number of deaths has gone up again, a lot. Two hundred and fifty deaths per day a week ago turned into 350, then 627 yesterday and 800 today. Along with the whole nation, this knowledge makes me feel so sad. Some people are now posting on social media "alternative statistics" saying how many babies are being born in Italy, and today I read there were 1,123 babies born. That is happy news indeed.

Then I read another terrible thing. As a consequence of the high rates of infection spreading, and that people are still going out "too much" for work or exercise, new stricter measures are put in place from tomorrow until April 15th. We are not allowed out anymore for exercise, not even alone; no gatherings of more than two people in public places (fines up to 5000 euros); all artisans, construction, and home care must stop; non-essential private studios and offices closed; street markets are canceled; all accommodations must close and guests have 72 hours to find another solution. This makes me sad, not because of losing freedoms in order to prevent deaths. I just feel sad on top of sad.

Last paragraph now... to end on good news, the Chinese Evangelical church of Rome has raised thousands of euros to buy and give away 180 thousand face masks, dropping them off in mailboxes, one by one, across the city. And tonight I'm going to hug my husband extra tight.

I thank God for the garden

I think we are luckier than most of the country as we have a tiny garden of our own. That means we can step outside whenever we want without bringing our permission document. When the sun comes out we can sit there and absorb it. We can still see neighbor's faces without having to calculate our distance, and say "hello" as they check their mail or bring in their groceries. Our garden allows me to remember what it felt like to freely move outside. When I'm not messaging friends, reading news, or writing blogs, I go out here.

Let's try for a "before shot" of the garden (below). This was last week and you can see the magnolia bloomed, and the small maple tree in the center pot is just barely opening its leaves. The tree in the center of the weedy lawn is a cherry. It's got big buds. We look forward to the blossoms opening any day now. The weedy lawn is wall-to-wall.

I've been attacking the weedy grass. I raked the whole thing, pulled up a bunch of weeds, and plowed a perimeter so I can plant something interesting when I get access to plants. For now, I've just put down the peony bulb and echinacea seeds that I had luckily found at the grocery store. Pulling up the weeds and leaving the dirt is a slow job. I hope to finish by the end of the week.

Maybe it was foolish

When the school closures were announced February 23rd, my employers took their family out of town to quarantine in another location and I was no longer working. I had free time. I tried to be careful keeping distances, washing my hands, and trying to control my hands from touching my face. It's harder than you think!

[Photo credit: https://twitter.com/jamesckim/status/1238571037517733889/photo/1]

I still went to all my normal appointments, aesthetic treatment, physiotherapy appointments, and we ate dinner with my in-laws and some other friends, I met up for coffee with one of my closest friends because it's a big deal going through the biggest pandemic of my lifetime and I wanted to see her face. We went for a hike on March 7th, the day before our region became a quarantine zone.

Lots of people were wishful thinking and used the hashtag #Milanononsiferma that means Milan won't stop. They wanted to encourage the people to keep going out and supporting local businesses.

All these moments were potential risks. Risks that we can no longer afford to take in Italy. Now we can only go out for urgent medical care, work that cannot be done from home and cannot be put off, necessities like groceries or cigarettes, to walk or walk the dog. You must carry a permission slip and you must always keep distances. These are the laws for more than a week and the virus is still spreading at a high rate. We had these germs before quarantine and now they're showing up, or now you're spreading it to your quarantine buddies. It is going to be awhile before the virus stops spreading.  

I didn't expect this

This breaks my heart. Today I saw this video of All Saint's church in Bergamo. The crematory can't even keep up in some cities that are the worst hit by #Coronavirus #deaths so the temporary solution is to keep the bodies in the church in coffins until they can be cremated.

This is what I imagined it was like during the plague. Obviously I'm not a historian, I can't compare the two pandemics. But I didn't expect to be seeing scenes like this in March 2020.

https://www.abruzzolive.it/la-scena-dei-cimiteri-pieni-a-bergamo-bare-nella-chiesa-e-salme-in-attesa-di-cremazione-da-giorni-video/

Psychological help line

On March 17th, after we had been staying at home for 3 weeks already, and the second week of national lockdown, our town posted a new community phone hotline for psychological help. 

"That's a great idea" I thought "are there already in week two?" Someone somewhere is already there. 

Lockdown, and how does it work?

Over the last month, the Italian government has continued to modify what our lockdown looks like. There were game changes almost every day last week as the rules became increasingly severe and was extended to the whole country! Our leaders are working hard to understand what are the best restrictions, what are the priorities, in which areas, while balancing pros and cons of the varying dynamics. However saving lives has prioritized over saving anything else in Italy, of which I am very proud.

It can be difficult to stay on top of the constantly changing restrictions. Information is spread via official channels, news, and social media. We try to keep up, and we try to understand. Meanwhile the rules of the game are real laws and not following them correctly can result in fines or potential lawsuits and jail time. Now put yourself in my friend's shoes. She runs her family's café in a residential neighborhood with a lot of elderly regular clientele. She shared with me that she was keeping the café open because she identified that her clientele need that space for social contact, a human connection. At the same time she was terribly worried about each and every one of them and found herself begging them to go home as soon as they had finished consuming their orders, wanting to protect them from infection.

Finally Thursday's law for full closures of all non-essentials made things clear and, with a sigh of relief, she closed the café. It hadn't been easy to stay open because the government doesn't call or write you to explain what you need to do. She had to go search online last once a day to discover for herself the most recently enacted guidelines. If she missed one, and was found not adhering, she could have faced a fine of hundreds of euros.

This is the English language infographic published by National police last week to explain what should stay open and what should be closed, as well as guidelines regarding leaving your home and watching for virus symptoms.

School closures and Church dismissed

As cases spread, people are feeling more validated in their concerns. Some have had been exposed and begin self-quarantining, some notice that their daily commute route goes through Codogno (Italy’s first hot spot). This prompted one small church community I know to announce Saturday evening that the next morning’s service is cancelled.

Sunday school teachers in my church talked about cancelling Sunday school the next day. Once we write to warn families that this service will be limited or cancelled completely, the majority respond that they will not be attending anyway. Later after the service, I heard later, the congregation decided together they should respect only meet with some special guidelines respected: 1 meter personal distancing and avoid physical contact. Our usual greet and hug tradition would be cancelled. Anyone with symptoms was begged to not come. 

My husband and I went to our last mass for awhile. You see, I’m protestant, from Baptist background, and my husband is Catholic, so for us building an ecumenical marriage means we respect both traditions and are part of both communities, together. This morning we went to our parish mass, swathed in pomp and incense, just before the eucharist wafers are about to be distributed, the priest asked the organist to stop playing mid-song for an announcement. He says per directions, the eucharist will be placed into worshipper’s hands, not placed into the mouth. Mass finishes and aside from a few huddles, everyone else avoids contact and dashes home to make lunch. 

In the afternoon, only a few hours later, there is a Catholic church directive to cancel mass from that moment on. Those who were planning to go in the evening were out of luck. No more mass for awhile. There’s also a government directive that schools will be close for the week in the entire Lombardy region. Every went straight to the grocery store and ransacked the aisles.

Photo credit: https://patch.com/virginia/oldtownalexandria/northern-virginia-school-closings-related-new-coronavirus

Trends and general panic

Italians suddenly want to stock up on Amuchina brand hand sanitizer gel and face masks. These immediately became scarce and profiteers were selling the items on Amazon for the cost of gold: little bottles of Amuchina or a single face mask were listed for multiple hundreds of euros. Pure madness. Thank God people are now posting DIY recipes for hand sanitizer so no one has to go without.

Since the day Milan first splashed in the news for Coronavirus cases, every article had a picture of someone wearing a mask while standing around recognizable parts of the city. I personally went into the city multiple times for work, errands, and to donate blood (don't forget to donate!). I used public transportation exclusively. I only saw maybe one in twenty people had a mask. Wondering why so many had them in the photos, I realized, of course: photos of people in the coronavirus hot spot are not as interesting as photos of people with face masks in the coronavirus hot spot. When you only see pictures of people wearing face masks, you end up feeling left out if you don't have one, like how you feel showing up to a Halloween party without a costume. The grab to buy face masks makes me the more angry than other panic buying phenomena because many vulnerable people (immune-depressed, cancer patients, elderly) weren’t able to, and still aren’t able to, get their hands on one because others bought them before they even asked themselves if they really needed one.

Some countries are suddenly dealing with a shortage of toilet paper, not because production stopped, and not because the need increased, only because everyone went out to stock up more than they normally would have, and no one wants to be left out, so everyone tries to stock up all at once. Some people didn't get to buy any at all. Do you feel good about that now, hoarders? You know who you are. We've seen some strange phenomena about the panic reaction. Panic triggers set off irrational trends. Moral of the story: responsible unselfish citizens just buy what they need for now. You are going to be able to buy it again tomorrow and again next week, and again next month, for goodness sake.


Photo credit: https://offertedalweb.io/offerta/amuchina/ , https://notizie.tiscali.it/cronaca/articoli/cornavirus-contagi-salgono/ , sent to us by a friend

And then we noticed

While Spring Fashion week was throbbing in Milan—the city sparkling with models and fashionably dressed folks, and metros jam packed—we read that a young man was diagnosed with Coronavirus in Codogno, a small town in the SE corner of the province of Milan. Doctors and scientists were doing their best to understand how he could have got the virus, and whom he might have infected.

I have no idea if it was the original patient or someone else, but rumors went around that an infected young man was tired of quarantine and ran off to see his friends in a neighboring town, causing a breakout of infections in that town. Cases started showing up in Lodi and Bergamo, among other towns. Community spread. Alarms go off. Codogno and a few towns are completely cordoned off and these become the first areas to go under severe public quarantine. Already people started to erupt with anger on social media for his selfish act and so began the intense Italian social pressure on social media to do the right thing.


Photo credit: https://www.wheremilan.com/events/fashion-week-milano-moda-donna-febaruary-2020/ and https://starecat.com/norton-antivirus-cd-compact-disc-face-mask-corona-virus-protection/

Nervousness triggers racist reactions

Strange stories appeared in social media. A few nervous Italian provincials warned against entering Chinese businesses due to supply lines, but didn’t consider that most top brands and actually everything comes from China. Asian visitors and immigrants of various origins told stories of being shaken up by random racism-based attacks in public places, and warned anyone, regardless of continent of origin, who simply looks Asian, to keep their guard up and stay away for awhile. Our local Chinese population, having better access to Chinese-language guidelines from Wuhan, were the first citizens to begin closing their shops and staying indoors.

(Photo credit: https://adm-ea.com/2013/07/06/study-programmes-internship-for-asian-students-in-europe/)

Early days

Italy has more air connections to China than any other country in Europe, apparently. At the end of January, a couple of tourists from Wuhan flew into Milan and started their vacation heading South. They got symptoms and, reaching Rome, tested positive for Coronavirus. We were worried about potential spread, but didn’t hear of any other cases for awhile. The Italian government decided to cancel all flights from Wuhan, but didn’t restrict people from Wuhan who flew here through other routes. At this stage, we read about Coronavirus in the news a lot, but weren’t particularly concerned about its presence in Italy. Yet.

Meanwhile Milan hosted Spring fashion week and the city was jam packed. You had to squeeeeeze to get into the metro.

(photo credit: https://www.lamescolanza.com/…/giovani-occupati-piu-viaggi…/)

Why I'm writing this blog

I’m an American from the Pacific coast who immigrated to Italy 10 years ago and currently work as an English tutor/nanny. My husband is an Italian from the Lombardy region who is a Scout and works as an IT systems specialist. We met in 2017 and married last summer.

Back in January when I read the news regarding the Chinese public quarantine, I wondered how people were handling it in their private lives. What was happening in those millions of Chinese apartments in the provincial capital of Wuhan? Were they constantly fighting or constantly sleeping? Were they binge-watching Netflix or investing their time in productive activities? Were they sad and lonely or staying as connected as ever via social media? What would I do? I just saw myself standing there holding a giant question mark in my imagined Wuhan apartment. Now it’s here.

I’m telling my version of “our quarantine story” for anyone who wants to hear. This isn’t for me. I could write it in my journal and keep it to myself. But I figure someone else would like a peek into a quarantined home to see how they cope, and to imagine what it might be like when it’s their turn to shut indoors. If you're also shut indoors and want to contribute, feel free to write me.