Living in the Era of Coronavirus (the Truth from an Italian)

A new page of history has been written and it is related to Coronavirus.

How many places do we take for granted? How many people do we take for granted? A few days ago I was planning my next travel destination. I felt excited, but at the same time a little anxious. I was thinking about all the practical issues to deal with and the new adventure that would have begun shortly thereafter. We know that challenges bring us face to face with the unknown. There are moments in which we feel invincible in front of them, others in which our most hidden weaknesses emerge. This is normal. This is life. It means you are living and not surviving. Meanwhile, the silent enemy, the so-called Coronavirus, was making its way into our lives, while we continued to make plans. Maybe we were worried about little things.

Aperitifs with my closest friends, dinners with my best friend to share joys, disappointments and future projects, walks outside in the open air enjoying the sunny days, family lunches with my loved ones. To me, Coronavirus was nothing more than a little more aggressive flu, which would soon be over. This is what I thought. This is what we all have believed till now, because in reality nobody knew very well what COVID-19 was. Today nobody really knows what it is.

In the era of non-hugs

Coronavirus is not a flu. It is an unknown enemy, which enters our daily life silently, no one excluded, distorting habits and relationships. Yes, I admit it. I had underestimated it. Now we are in the era of non-hugs and physical distances.

I don’t want to turn this post into a political dispute. I shiver in reading political statements about Coronavirus and I watch videos and look at images of people gathering in places, joining marathons, events, thinking to be immune. People still think it is only a flu. Other people invite travellers to not stop traveling now. You can pospone your trip. Do it.

This is meant to be a post to remind you to be responsible. Many readers and friends around the world write me asking if the media is exaggerating or not. They want to know if what is happening in Italy is reality or a terrible horror movie. Today, as an Italian, I am writing you what is happening here.

My message is only one: MAKE PREVENTION. It is not a joke. It is more real than you can imagine and the infections will increase. Prevent now, not when it is too late. Use your head, but don’t let fear overwhelm you. Fear makes you lose clarity and superficiality prevents you from seeing reality clearly. This is dangerous, this can lead to dramatic implications for yourself, your loved ones, and the whole community.

What is happening in the reality

We Italians are all on lockdown. Just a few days ago we had a normal life. Today, to keep us company, we take advantage of technology, perhaps in a more positive way: video calls to smile together, virtual training sessions to be healthy. Just to be strong together, without losing hope and to remind us that this nightmare will end soon. We will be on lockdown to try to contain, as much as possible, the contagions. Everything is closed here: restaurants, cinemas, theaters, bars. Streets are empty. We are only allowed to go out for work, for buying food at the grocery stores where you enter two by two and for buying medicines. We can’t even move from one town to another and if we leave our houses we must necessarily have self-certification to show where we are going to. I really miss my loved ones. They live in the neighboring towns and, unfortunately, I cannot see them.

In the meantime, our doctors and nurses make grueling work shifts to help people with Coronavirus which arrive at the hospitals, every day. There are doctors and nurses in my family too and they talk me about the serious situation. The virus affects your ability to breathe. I would like to clarify this. It is true, the virus is lethal to a small percentage of people. Well, the problem is not mortality, the question is whether our health systems are really ready to face the contagion cases that increase day by day.

We don’t have infinite respirators. We don’t have infinite spots in intensive care. If the contaminated patients increase, they cannot all be cured. It means that doctors are obliged to choose who need to be cured. This is already happening here. It is not true that the virus affects only the elderly. Young people are also affected. Coronavirus is super contagious. Maybe you do not have any symptoms. This means that if you do not know you have the virus, in the meantime, you have passed it onto your loved ones who may show the symptoms. If symptoms appear, it happens on average on the fifth day, although many people are ill after a 14-day incubation. Surely those who have had previous pathologies are more at risk than others, but it is also true that before taking the virus those people, now deceased, had absolutely normal lives, without presenting their pathologies.

Do you know what it means, do not you? How many people have you been in contact with over 14 days? Let’s try to get out of the mind: why should it happen to me?

Be responsible and follow the rules

There is only a way to contrast the virus and it is following the rules. So please:

• wash your hands a lot;
• do not touch your eyes, face and nose with your hands and if you need to cough or sneeze, do it in a tissue of paper that you use just once. If you don’t have one use the inside of your forearm;
• no hugs, no kisses. Keep a safe distance from one another (1 metre);
• avoid parties and crowded places;
• try to stay home as much as you can;
• don’t panic but take it seriously.

We have to be responsible now. We can do without parties and events and trips for a while, if it means protecting ourselves and all the people we love. There will be the time when we will travel again with more reasons to enjoy our journey and it will be different, with more awareness. This is the time to appreciate all the things we have underestimated till now. We will come back to give a hug, a kiss and they will have more value than ever. Together we can be stronger.

Sending you all a virtual hug!