The coronavirus situation seems to grow more serious with each passing day. The World Health Organization has finally declared the virus a pandemic. Meanwhile, Italy, the European country that the virus hit the hardest, had to take drastic measures to protect its citizens and to try and slow the spread of the illness.

However, how are Italians dealing with the coronavirus lockdown and what is the current situation like? That’s what one internet user wanted to know as they turned to the Ask Reddit community for answers. Italians explained just how much Covid-19 had turned their lives upside down: from school and work to everyday life.

We’ve collected the most moving responses from the Reddit thread, so read on to learn what living in Italy is really like from the people who are experiencing it firsthand. We don’t want to raise any unnecessary panic (we see enough of that worldwide already), but this may be what some of us might have to look forward to if our own countries are locked down in the future.

#1

I live in the heart of the Lombardy region. All my family has it and my grand uncle died. People just stay home and that’s it. There is not much to do and shops are closed.

You can hear ambulances all day and night.

My uncle is in the hospital with a high fever. His wife got it as well but she is home as her symptoms are milder. My cousin is taking care of her and miraculously she is fine.

However her grandpa died and she couldn’t even go to visit him. Her grandma is sick as well and she can’t see her either and she can’t see her dad. Hospitals are closed.

The available hospital beds in intensive care have run out and doctors are making tough choices for who to try to save which is terrifying considering most of my family is old and they might not get a bed.

Doctors are overworked and tired and since I know many people that work in the hospital, they are sharing with me these gruesome pics of people recovered in the intensive care unit. They are intubated and it just is a sad view.

Hospitals are so full of people on life support because of Coronavirus people are amassed on the corridors because they lack rooms:

My friend who gets people with the ambulance is working non stop to get people who are in critical conditions.

People keep saying it’s just a flu. Yes sure, but a flu without having had a vaccine can be quite dangerous. The youngest person I know that has it, he is in his forties and has had 40 degrees Celsius temperature for two weeks straight and counting.

Don’t catch it, it’s really not fun even if your immune system is strong, trust me on this, I have seen the repercussion on my family first hand.

No church is open or public event is held.

Since Italy is primarily populated by old people, we are used to see the streets being empty and everything being quite. Right now is just quieter.

They couldn’t even held the funeral for her grandpa.

My grandma woke up sick and I truly hope she has something else.

So many people in my city have it and yet they keep going around the city and spreading it. Incredible.

Some people go to the supermarket and get out of it with tons of food so that they don’t need to go shopping again. Others, like my grandma, go everyday because “how else is she going to get fresh bread?” Luckily we have convinced her that she cannot go anymore and she said from tomorrow she won’t leave the house. Just this Sunday she HAD to go to church to confess. The town priest has been taken to the hospital today because he catched Coronavirus and he is in critical conditions.

I wonder how this death count will go up now that the hospitals are overfilled.

Rumor has it that my cousin’s grandma got it because she was in the hospital being treated because she broke her back but I can’t be sure about this so this is just our personal speculation based on no real evidence so don’t take my word for it.

#2

I am a doctor who works at one of the largest hospitals in Rome. The situation seems much worse than reported in the news. We are scared, but we continue to go to work for a sense of responsibility by turning. We do not have suitable safeguards for our protection, such as ffp3 masks.

#3

Since yesterday night, every town is locked down. I cannot move 5 km without a proper reason (work, or a relative very sick and so on) otherwise a could get arrested. The government, immediately backed up by lots of celebrities, is basically saying “please, stay home”. Our emergency departments in the hospitals are collapsing. Literally, chemos or surgeries that are “not urgent” are being delayed (how’s a chemo not urgent?). Bars and restaurants can only open from 6 am to 6 pm. It’s been over a month that places where big number of people could meet have been closed (discos, sport centers, clubs, schools and universities). It’s crazy.

Anonalligator’s thread on r/AskReddit got over 78.7k upvotes, several awards, as well as over 11k comments. This goes to show that this topic is on a lot of people’s minds and lots of us are worried about our friends in Italy.

Italians went into detail about the loved ones they lost, the way public life has stopped in some places, and how some people are panicking.

Meanwhile, people from other countries that the virus has spread to (including South Korea) explained what they’re dealing with and how it’s different from the situation in Italy.

#4

I’m Italian but live abroad. Currently my brother is in one of the high risk zone in the north. He works at the university as a researcher, today he went to work and the laboratory was empty. Starting from tomorrow the uni told him to stay at home and that the structure will be temporary closed. He was planning an exchange with a laboratory in Ireland for April but I think it’s canceled. He’s worried of course and a bit bored too but he understands that the situation is critical and that we have to give our contribution to avoid the spreading.

My cousin is in Bologna where the situation is surreal. According to him, no one is on the streets and the the supermarket got assaulted multiple times from people concerning that they would have run out of food (which is not going to happen since supplies are guaranteed).

My parents live in a small city in the south where only four cases were registered in the entire region so far, so they are not much concerned, but they are taking precautions if the situation will get worse and they are trying to stay at home when possible. Luckily their jobs are not at risk because my mother works in public administration and my father can work on remote.

I live in Germany instead. Yesterday I went to a pharmacy and I could get a couple of face masks “just in case”. The ladies there understood from my accent I wasn’t German, so they asked me where I was coming from. As soon as I said I was Italian they “jumped away”. I felt like I needed to specify I was living here and had no contact with Italy since December. That felt bad.

#5

We should stay home but people are selfish and don’t care

#6

I live in Verona, I’m a 19 years old living alone because my mother and my father took it in milan and for the first time I’m home alone for a month. Pretty nice tho, I play gta5 with my friends like the old days, doing some indoor workout and experimenting with cooking (I’m becoming a good chef). The school is quite annoying but its ok, I wake up at 7:30 and at 8am I start a 5 hours straight in front of my laptop for online lessons and then I go cooking my lunch. I don’t go out if not to buy some food and maybe some cigarettes because the situation its not good, there is no space left in the intensive therapy so if I get really sick, they would have to remove someone to save me since I would have better chance of surviving. This is why I almost never go out (once a week). I don’t want to be the reason for someone death

All shops, except for food shops and pharmacies, will be closed in Italy. What’s more, the country will close non-essential company departments, restaurants, bars, and hairdressers. That’s adding to the list of schools, gyms, nightclubs, and museums that the government has already shut down. The coronavirus has drastically changed the fabric of Italian life. For now.

At the time of writing, Italy has over 12k confirmed cases of people infected with the virus. At least 827 people have already lost their lives due to the illness. These numbers will most likely rise, unfortunately.

#7

We have an hashtag running on Twitter, #IoStoACasa it basically means IStayHome. People only travel alone and mantain a 1 meter safe distance. We have to change life habits drastically for two weeks to keep the virus from spreading. It worked in Wuhan, we hope it works here as well

#8

I’m a student who lives in Emilia Romagna. Schools have been closed for three weeks, there is no one hanging out, everyone is cooped up in their houses. Ngl, this looks like a post apocalyptic scenario. People are starting to have relatives with the virus (my aunt, for example, has the virus), in every town there are a few infected. We can’t move from a town to another, unless we have a specific permission (for example, we can if we have to go to work).

Every day we use Google meet to make online video-calls with our teachers and classmates, so we keep studying and doing our programs even if we are closed in our houses.

Many people are terrified, while many are chilling way too much, especially in the southern regions, because the virus has just started spreading there, while here in the Northern regions there are already thousands of infected.

#9

I’m a final year medic and I’m graduating on Thursday over skype.

#10

I basically live in the epicenter of the outbreak of Coronavirus here in Italy. Things are difficult for me because I am far from my parents (like 1 hour drive), they are in their 70s and I am stuck because I don’t wanna go home since I am scared I could possibly infect them…but at the same time I wanna help them with groceries and stuff.

I am currently working from home and going out only once a week to do grocery shopping.

To move between different towns we need a document attesting that we are either going home, work or it’s an emergency.

The hardest part is hearing the daily update of the number of deaths and sick people.. everyday we are told that hospitals cannot accept people anymore, all the hospitals here in the Lombardy region are saturated, nurses and doctors are falling sick too…if you need to go to an emergency room (even if it is not for the coronavirus) they cannot help you and this feeling is devastating.

Moreover there are no masks around, it’s impossible to find them and hospitals are finishing them too.

Waking up every day to this is hard but I’m still hopeful that this thing will end soon.

#11

It’s freaking outrageous, I’m crying right now while I’m typing these words. I’m 19, I study IT in University and both my mother and my father (divorced) have lost their job for at least the next month. It’s already really hard normally, right now the situation is terrible. This morning I’ve spent hours looking for good web sites where to sell our paintings and everything that allow us to continue living. Even before this whole thing started I was looking for a job to get some money while studying so to help my family, but right now I can’t even go to an interview because movements are allowed only for working (if you already have a job) and health issues. I live in the region where this whole thing started in Italy, yesterday night our government has extended our rules to all regions of Italy, so this means that the number of people living my situation has only increased. I never imagined I would ever lived this nightmare

#12

Everything is in lockdown, you can’t move without a valid reason. This wouldn’t have happened, if it weren’t for all those stupid people who kept traveling even though they were explicitly told not to. There are many infections caused by this. Literally, sick people ESCAPED from quarantine to go back to their native town. Also, the other day as soon as the first “red zones” (no traveling from/to those zones) were announced, the train stations of those zones were full of people running away. It’s surreal how stupid people can be.

#13

Train conductor in Milan, Lumbardy.

Trains and public transports in general are still working, although there’s talks of shutting them down soon. We’ll see.

Some of my colleagues advocate a total stop, while most are just pushing our company to provide additional measures of security (i.e masks and gloves for every shift and weekly health Checks). In General there is a climate of worry, most people are scared for their lover ones, some for themselves.

On the plus side the city is remarkably beautiful these days. Silent and empty streets, clean air. A vague sense of tranquillità.

#14

Highschool student here, school’s are simply closed and the TV is full of ads about washing your hands and avoid contact with other people. Edit: I forgot to say that each morning we have approximately 3 hours of video lessons from our laptop

#15

South Italy here: I’m waiting for the virus to spread as in northern Italy, if not worse.

A lot of idiots rushed south to their mommy after the Government declared the region of Lombardia red zone, and here the people seems to not understand the situation.

Yesterday morning there were a lot of people strolling around not caring about what’s happening. Yesterday night the Prime Minister declared all Italy red zone, and a lot of people rushed to 24/7 stores to buy food.

I decided to stay at home for at least a week, but my parents and the parents of my friends are going around the city like it’s not their problem.

There will be another infection peak here in the southern Italy in a few days.

#16

The most frightening thing is going to be the economy. Not only stock prices, but all the small businesses that survived and that support small communities: my parents own a big electrotechnical company, but their biggest clients are the government, airports and big corporations, that now don’t allow anyone inside. It’s looking pretty bad and the worst is yet to come according to academic studies

#17

Currently watching a university lesson from my bed but my father went to work this morning, I’m in a region where the lockdown started officially today so it’s all pretty new, let’s hope people don’t storm the grocery stores

#18

Basic italian uni student with bad english here. Basically in the past we used to cough to cover up a fart, nowadays we fart to cover up a cough.

#19

I have a daughter living in Saronno, but she works in Milano. She is house bound, on lock down. Her courses are being done via Skype. Her employer has asked her not to come to work. She is not allowed to leave her house unless it is an emergency (which I hope never happens). She says there has been quite a bit of panic buying at the Supermarkets. All the restaurants are pretty much empty, however they are allowed to be open between 6am and 6pm (people who are seated should have at least a 1m distance between them at restaurants). Tourist areas (eg Duomo in Milano) are devoid of almost anybody. All school and University’s remain close, all sporting or any kind of events have been suspended, ski resorts are closed, the same for cinemas, theaters, discos, all church services have been suspended. Whilst the measures may seem extreme, Italy has been the hardest hit worldwide besides for China, so it’s necessary to curb travel and cultural activities to stop the spread of the virus.

#20

I’m a university student, and since last week we have been doing lessons via Microsoft Teams or Google Classrooms. I don’t really like these methods, but it’s the only alternative, so… There’s a fair amount of psychosis between a big chunk of the population; supermarkets have been raided overnight. We are advised to not leave our houses unless it’s necessary, but you can fill a form on your own to certify that you need to go to work, so basically everyone is running around without a real examination of that form because literally anyone can do that. The only thing that has been really impacted by this is nightlife and sports since every league of every sport is suspended until April

#21

I am 14 and live in Italy. It’s not bad, I don’t have to go to school, but I still have to do homework but it’s not too much. We will have virtual lesson this week. I have finally time to read(Plato’s Republic) and I can finally get better at doing the Rubik’s cube. I have a lot of free time so I joined the conlanging discord to learn something new. This will last until 3 April and I’m really happy about it.

#22

I’m in the Florence airport right now trying to get back home to the US. I’ve been living here for 6.5 months studying abroad.. I was supposed to stay till June but my study abroad program got suspended and my student visa shortened.

It’s insane right now. And that’s a massive understatement. I couldn’t make it to the airport in time cause Florence is in lockdown as of last night — no one is allowed to leave home except to go to work. So you can imagine how difficult finding a taxi was. I missed my flight, and spent 4 hrs on the phone with United (f them) trying to get my flight rescheduled for the 3rd time.

Us study abroad students have been living at the edge of our seats. One email from the Italian govt suddenly changes everything. It has been a really stressful, chaotic, emotional couple weeks for both myself and my friends. Honestly, I just broke down in the airport because I was so frustrated, and I was definitely not the only one crying.

#23

It’s pretty bad actually. I’m sophomore and I feel like it will be really hard to catch up, because we will have barely a month of actual school left. Moreover, the lockdown is causing severe economical issues, expecially to those who own small businesses such as restaurants, clothing stores ect. A lot of these activities will go bankrupt, because they have close to no customers. However, I think the only thing we can do is contain the infection, so the lockdown is necessary.

#24

Basically, for the first time in history, I can save my life and potentially someone else’s too by being a piece of crap laying on the couch all day watching netflix and playing videogames.

#25

I’m Air Force stationed in Pisa. I was thinking my drive to work this morning would be quiet after the lockdown. Nope. Cars on the roads like normal and saw flights taking off from the airport. Not sure how people are flying unless its within the country. Currently waiting on word on how the military will go forward with the new decree.

#26

I’m in senior year in high school, i don’t know how it is in other countries, but here we have a final exam called “Maturità” (maturity). Currently we are organizing with our teachers to do online classes, and we have like zero information on how it will be our Maturità because of the time we are losing at home.

School aside, there’s an order from the government that says that all the further pointless outgoes will be sanctioned by police. But for me, being a teenager, this is not so bad, I play a lot of Rainbow Six Siege, I do my homework, and I finally have some time to edit some videos or read the books i bought about video editing.

It’s quite brutal if you ask me, but I understand the situation and i will cooperate with what my government decided.

#27

Had to go to work this morning in a desert city, felt post apocalyptic in every means (empty stations, recorded warnings about the situation, etc) and despite wanting to rush thing at work to go back home I can’t really get the right amount of concentration.

#28

I am self employed.

I am working as normal, but I advised my clients not to come by unless it’s truly urgent. I’m asking my secretary to take a paid leave until the end of the month because I don’t really need her around since many colleagues are not working much right now.

All bars are closed. restaurants too I guess but I wouldn’t know because I have a newborn and my life has been just work-home for the past two months anyways.

We avoid shaking hand and coming too close to other people. Wash our hands religiously and change clothes as soon as I get home. I avoid taking the elevator as much as possible.

All in all, life is going on mostly as it was before but there’s very few people around.

I am mostly worried about my father since he’s close to 80 and he insists on working. I hope this goes away soon.

#29

People are God damn stupid here, one of my friend asked me to hang out because he was bored of staying home. Half of the people does not even care about the virus and the restrictions, the other half is totally confused because the govern is handling things in a bad way. Disinfectant is out of stock because people can’t even read that it doesn’t work against the virus, also any chinese is looked in a weird “oh i want you to know i’m not racist” way.

#30

Live in Italy. It’s the same as usual. The real kick in the teeth is not producing anything economically for the next month and watching people starve since they can’t open their business. The virus is bad, but I think the long term economic side effects will be far worse. But it is what it is.

#31

I live in one of the center regions, where the situation is a bit more chill (even tho pretty near one of what used to be a red zone before yesterdays decree, pesaro urbino). It really sucks as a worker in the food industry, since the virus spread in italy I had most of my hours cut, and now the place I work at will probably have to close. I get this, nobody is going to eat out right now and it’s safer this way, but I won’t have any income for the month of march and it’s kinda scary, I’m 21 years old and I have no support from my parents and I’ll probably have to rely on my bf. Work aside, here the situation is okay, I went grocery shopping yesterday and the supermarkets had all in stock, I wonder if people are going to raid them today lol!

#32

LET ME TELL YOU HOW IT IS REALLY GOING

We’re in a friggin s**thole. Im currently quarantined in my appartment in Brescia, right in the middle of where it all started (close to milan). Yesterday our government declared redzone for the whole country, meaning no moving inside the country without a written permission, pretty much everything soon to be shutdown except primary necessities; the same night hordes of people rushed 24/7 markets, ignoring the most important rule.

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The thing is, the real virus in italy right now is goddamn IGNORANCE. People are not grasping the emergency, we basically don’t have healthcare rightnow because of hospitals that are FULL already and people here think they’re in a fucking vacation. Meanwhile i’m here scared to even see and meet my parents that live 30min car from me because of this virus. Companies are going down, we’re taking a huge hit in any aspect and the same is happening around us in europe. Southern italy has yet to understand the situation, in fact they even were making joke of us northerns, until the other day when some of them rushed to the south scared of the lockdown,ofc bringing with them the virus. 2 days later the whole country went redzone. The thing is we’re locked down but we have to enforce it with the army or many won’t even care because they still think it’s a fever, especially in the south, that will probably collapse because the south has a lot less infrastructures especially in the medical field.

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And many of them think that this will end in a month, not gonna happen unless we cooperate forreal tho

#33

I’m from Milan. I’m stuck at home with two brothers and my dad who is working from home for like two weeks.

Most of the time I have to attend online lessons from my uni.

Yesterday a police car drove through the neighborhood with a megaphone warning citizens to stay home unless for emergency situation.

It felt like we were in some sort of stereotypical post- apocalyptic movie.

#34

I’m returning back to my place after I kept my girlfriend company. Thing is, her parents work and I’m scared that somehow I got it and it’s just waiting to show symptoms. The paranoia will only increase in the next few weeks. I hope when things are over we’ll invest more in public health and be more conscious about safety standards.

#35

Here in the South a lot of people don’t seem to care. They think it’s not something that will touch them, and the lockdown is being ignored by most. It’s really frustrating to see how ignorance will probably cause Sicily to quickly become one of the most afflicted zones.

My sister in law owns a bar, and people still go and have their insane amount of daily coffees religiously. They don’t care, nobody wears a mask, or gloves. Nobody is really staying at home.

#36

Ok, I live in Venice and my father is a doctor at Venice Hospital so I have a VERY general idea of what is going on (doubt anybody really know what to do actually).

1) Italy has a large number of positive patients because of the heavy testing approach used in the first days of the outbreak. The more you test, the more you find. This is controversial because no hospital was prepared for this massive number of people to be hospitalized, so they quickly runned out of masks, hand sanitizer and life support equipment.

2) Our media are shit. They have spread panic since day one which resulted in empty supermarkets and people with a lot of pasta and water bottles (no i’m not joking). Few days later everyone is saying that there is no emergency pushing everybody to go out and have fun (ex. San Marco square organized an event with hundreds of people that attended it) spreading the virus even more. Pick a side goddamn.

3) For a good week in the hospitals nobody had any idea of how to behave since there weren’t clear indications from the government. Now there are more serious protocols which consists in testing every people with syntomps and only the closest family members (at first we almost run out of testing kits).

4) The reasons of this major “lockdown” (which is nowhere near what China did, you can still go out, nobody is stopping you) is that there aren’t enough bed in intensive care units. In Lombardia they already started doing triage because they don’t have enough mechanical ventilators. Yet people don’t understand that this is the problem: we don’t have to stay at home because the virus is particularly dangerous, we have to stay at home and avoid contact because there are not resources for everybody. However a lot of people, in particular young people are taking this like a holiday and keeps going out (example, beaches were full of people Saturday because was a sunny day).

#37

I’m a nurse student in italy, right now i can’t go to the university, i can’t go to work, we shouldn’t go out unless it’s a necessity, so basically we need to stay home and finally finish our netflix list. It may sound pretty cool for the first few days, but after a while it gets pretty depressing and boring, i got so bored that i cleaned everything at home.

#38

For a couch potato like me it’s awesome. I can watch my uni lessons online and in my free time play a fuck ton of videogames or work out a little bit. Also I think we’re allowed to leave and get some fresh air. So except for the deadly virus thing everything is ok

#39

Right now I’m in my office in Tuscany, 20 miles away from my home. This morning at 7 am we hadn’t any problem moving around, but I don’t know how things will evolve outside my workplace.

There are a lot of different informations about what you can and what you can’t do from all the media, so I’m here hoping to not getting sick and still be capable at least to move to home tonight and maybe came back to work in the next days.

Some say life goes on like always, others say everything is compromised. I’m just here, waiting for things to develop. I have friends in northern Italy quarantined in their homes, my mum in hospital working with face masks and generally people freaking out.

They say grocery shopping will be guaranteed, so overall I’m not even worried about it. Maybe is the chance to have some days off and enjoy my home and some games…

Unrequested update: is 6pm, while working we got a document to show to police officers if we get stopped while going from a “comune” (something like U.S. municipalities) to another. In this document we declare who we are and why we aren’t in our home. You can move by car/bike/whatever if you have to meet your family (older people who need care, children and so on) or go to work. Every other reason is forbidden. Right now you still can go around the comune where you live without almost any problem (you only have to keep distance from people around you).

Traffic is quite low, compared to last week for example, but people still do their things. A lot of non-fundamental services are closed but you can still go to a pharmacy, hospital, gas stations and big workplaces like industries.

Social life is paused, almost everything else is still active in my life.

#40

If you’re a good citizen and you don’t have a job it’s hard to tell. For example I only poke my nose out of the house to go to the grocery store, and I can tell you there is no big problem there. Sometimes there are empty shelves, but it’s not something surreal. Though if you look at the streets, there are so few people, some wearing masks, with no social interaction. It’s weird. And the fact you don’t have to go to school or university, and you can’t even move out normally, makes this whole thing feel weird as fuck. It’s like time has stopped

#41

Our area is in lockdown since Sunday. Life is still quite normal here, except for the lines at the grocery stores. We need a paper in order to travel from a city to another, you can travel for emergencies and for work. Got some extra food just in case. Get ready fellow European redditors, this is not a joke

#42

Italian Dentist here.

The situation is under control. The lockdown was made because people started going on vacation or in pubs, cities etc. ignoring many common sense rules.

Many are worried by the economic repercussions of this lockdown: I’ll have to close my activity for basically a month, and that’s gonna suck. If the government does not help us by stopping taxation for a while we might be in deep trouble, financially speaking.

The virus itself concerns people because of the strain on the national sanitary system. For people not familiar with Italy’s system, we have universal healthcare for everyone, rich or poor, and the intensive care units are almost full. Natural Disaster Triage is taking place in many hospitals.

Hope this will be over soon.

#43

Tldr: it’s not a quarantine. Nobody is being forced to stay at home. Everything that has been asked is “don’t move for futile reasons” like “I’m home from school, hotels are cheap now so let’s go on a trip”. You can move for work. For emergencies. For health reasons. You can go shopping to supermarket. You can visit your parents if you need to. You just need to have a printed and compiled paper with you with your reasons for moving. It is not a real lockdown like in China, yet.

Some people are scared, but most just plainly don’t care. You still see one mask every 50-100 people, at best. Nobody wants to stay put at home, not even for an evening. People just don’t care. Most of the few who are starting to care are literally assaulting markets and pharmacies and are creating a whole new problem.

Hospital situation is brutal in some cities, mostly at the North. Other regions are starting to have the first cases only now.

It will not resolve itself. Until the entire health system start really collapsing, for political reasons our government will NOT force, really FORCE, people home. Only after that, maybe, things will get better. Expected a lot more cases in the next days.

Also nobody is talking about prison riots demanding amnesty, or the first 50+ prisoners that evaded yesterday. We don’t have the necessary military and police, nor they have enough legal power, to stop these events from happening.

#44

I’m in a small town near Pisa. This was not one of the high risk regions. Starting today I’m working from home (I’m a Computer Scientist) and this is goin to go on for a few weeks apparently.

My girlfriend just came back from a long walk with the dog alongside the river and had no problems. She is an elementary teacher and schools are closed, so she spends a few hours a day creating content and homework that the kids will be able to do on their own.

I have a visit to the dentist scheduled for 12 today and they sent me a paper that says I’m actually going to the dentist just in case police stops me.

No panic here. I’m sure working from home will become a new practice in my company once all this is over if we see it works well.

#45

I know a family that is stuck in northern Italy, they can’t get out of the city no matter what. It’s their fault though, they were stubborn and thought the corona outbreak would allow them to save some money, but now they can’t come back. SMH.

#46

Movie theaters are closed, gyms and pools too. I’ve been depressed all my life, plus I work from home so I know how to handle all of this, but I worry that many other people won’t know what to do with themselves. I live in an area where a lot of older people live (mostly pensioners) and I was thinking about asking them if they need help with getting groceries.

Many restaurants have resorted to delivering food at home, except my favorite one. I know the owners and they told me that things are looking grim right now.

I have a friend who’s a waiter at a restaurant and he won’t be going to work for a while, but they obviously won’t pay him his full salary, so I don’t know how that will go either for people in the same situation.

#47

My grandma is super depressed bc she can’t go to church 🙁

#48

I live and work in the Milan Area. Since my job can be done remotely, i’m in “forced smartworking”… So just do my normal job from home. There are orders from the government to avoid going out of the house for anything that is not essential (like emergencies and groceries). All social gatherings are canced until April the 3rd: so no gyms, no parties, no weddings, no funerals, etc. When going into public buildings like supermarkets we should wear masks, keep 1.5 m distance, and only few people at the time are admitted.

Not every job can be done remotely, so there are still people going to their workplace, but given that most of the people is not, public transportation is almost empty.

Airlines are cancelling flights since many people are not going and for sure they are not buying new tickets.

Since the extension to the whole Lombardia of the Red Zone (in theory is the “no in, no out zone”) has been leaked last weekend, many (irresponsible, i would say) people escaped by train to their families/parents south. I heard that they will be quarantines, i hope that they are actually doing that.

#49

It’s a bit odd. People are either panicking or biting their heads in the sand, there’s very little in between. I’m working from home, doing English lessons via Skype. Only a few people allowed inside shops/bars at once to try to maintain the safety distance. Supermarkets are still fully stocked etc though. I think it depends what city you’re in too, my area isn’t too hard hit (yet?) so I’m probably not seeing the full impact.

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