Covid-19: letter from Rome

From around mid-March, Italy went into a complete lockdown. Schools and colleges were closed, as were all shops and businesses except those for essential items such as food and medicines. Most factories and construction sites also shut down and public transport was severely limited. People were not allowed to leave their neighbourhoods unless for pressing reasons, such as emergency medical treatments or visiting the ill and infirm. The police and other security forces stopped people on the street and gave out big fines for unauthorised movement. Both the mainstream and social media showed images of empty streets and piazzas, of closed shops and restaurants, of long silent queues outside supermarkets and pharmacies. These images, along with even more dramatic ones of army trucks taking the dead to crematoriums, shocked Italians.

These measures, however, appeared to work. The rate of new infections, which had hit a daily peak of over 6,500 new cases on March 21, steadily declined to a few hundred. By early May the government, based on advice from various expert bodies, started to ease the lockdown. On May 4, several activities were allowed to resume operations and almost five million went back to work. Everyone held their breaths to see if infection rates rose. Fortunately, rates stayed low (around 100-200 new cases every day) with ever fewer people dying or needing intensive care. The feeling was that the worst was over. The government increasingly turned its attention to the drastic economic impact of the pandemic on the Italian economy. Announcements of a massive EU-funded relief package, easy access to virtually costless credit, and generous unemployment benefits fuelled a sense of optimism.

However, doctors and virologists continued to plead caution, telling people not to let their down guard; that the virus was still around and outbreaks could reoccur; and precautions such as face masks and avoiding close physical contact were critical. But with the arrival of summer, many Italians decided to take their traditional summer vacation. People thronged to the beaches and other holiday spots. Restaurants, bars and clubs were packed especially in popular Italian holiday places such as Sardinia, but also in other Mediterranean resorts in Greece, Malta, Spain and Croatia. Social distancing and face masks became an exception rather than the rule.

As could be expected, the Cassandras were proved right. The virus is on the move again. Daily new cases have started rising since early August as people started coming back from holiday with a sharp spike after the most iconic summer festivity of “Ferragosto” on August 15. The latest figures show daily new cases approaching 1,500 — a figure that was not seen since early April/May. A similar spike is taking place in France with even higher numbers of new infections with the government talking about a new lockdown.

While these numbers are alarming, there are differences in this new outbreak. The most important of these is the predominance of young people among the newly infected. The average age of those infected is around 30 years, about half the average age during the first round of infections in March/April. More critically, many of the new cases have relatively mild symptoms and a significant proportion are completely asymptomatic. However, the fear is that as they return to their homes and places of work they will transmit the virus to those more vulnerable — in particular parents and grandparents.

Once again Italians are glued to their radios and TVs listening to the daily bulletins from the Ministry of Health. Once again there are accusations flying around between political parties. The opposition claims that the government had completely mismanaged the crisis, while the government claims that the opposition is irresponsibly instrumentalising a public health issue. There is palpable fear that any restrictions on movement will severely impact an already battered economy and push tens of thousands more out of work and into poverty. It is certainly a very testing time.

A key milestone in the coming weeks is the reopening of schools, which have been closed for six months. Schoolchildren, along with their parents, have been severely affected by the lockdown. The impacts were partly economic with many working parents having to take on extra help, or even stop working outside the home. The long-term social impacts are likely to be even severer. The limited contact children have with their peers over this extended period is likely to have significant negative pedagogic and physiological impacts. The government continues to reiterate that schools will open as scheduled on September 14 and is spending massive amounts of money to reengineer schools and classrooms to allow distancing among students and from teachers. In many cases, class sizes will have to be reduced and new teachers employed.

The war with the virus is by no means over and one just has to keep fingers crossed and behave as safely as possible.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 11^th, 2020.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.