Dispatches from the old country, by Dario Pio Muccilli

Giorgio (the name is fictitious for his privacy) is a nurse who works for a hospital in northern Italy, and last week he got infected. He is now one of the 69,176 coronavirus cases in the country.

He probably got infected while he was working, and he knew it after the swab he did tested positive.

“They called me the day after the swab, and they said I should stay home because I was ill,” said Giorgio, who is now in quarantine with his family and without any kind of public assistance.

If Giorgio left his home, even to buy basic goods, he would risk a fine of about 3,000 euros ($3,266).

The quarantine is not easy. The illness makes him vomit, and he has a fever, but nobody helps him and his family.

Predicaments like Giorgio’s are now commonplace in the panic-stricken nation of Italy. The coronavirus is a new shock for a country that was already struggling to muster vitality.

The whole economy is damaged, and many workers are obliged to stay home without salary unless their jobs support essential industries and activities. During the last month, we have seen lots of different presidential decrees with increasingly restrictive measures to halt the outbreak of COVID-19.

At the beginning of the emergency, there was a lack of awareness of the danger both in the Italian establishment and in the public consciousness, but when people understood that coronavirus is not only an influenza, the first reaction was to stock up on food supplies.

At the beginning of March, I spent two hours in line in front of a supermarket to buy pasta, flour and basic goods. People in line were confused – some were optimistic while others thought the outbreak was a plot ordered by the “great powers.”

The fear has changed the behavior of the nation. Italians are famous for being physical; now people are afraid of any kind of contact. In the queues in front of the supermarkets, people respect the one-meter security distance between one another like never before.

There’s fear in the eyes of the people you meet in the streets. We don’t know if this period will end. Maybe the epidemic could stop, but our souls and behaviors will be marked forever.

The government has decided to hang our freedoms for the public health, and Italians seem supportive of the government’s policies, but a decline of the epidemic could rapidly overturn this consent.

Students are facing the closure of schools with a move to online classes.

“But it’s not easy,” said a teacher of a high school near Turin. “The government left us alone, and there are lots of web problems.”

It’s not a good period for any kind of activity. At the end of January, when the outbreak began, many Italians went on winter holiday, not yet understanding the danger.

My girlfriend, for example, was on a train when the national emergency was declared. Screens on the wagons started announcing crisis measures by the government, and the passengers got panicked.

Now it’s not possible to travel on a train without a necessary reason. People must stay home, and there are lots of psychological problems in the solitude.

Up to now, the hysteria of the Italians is expressed by singing and dancing from the windows and the balconies every day at 6 pm, but this emotion could soon give way to radical urges. There are hints of nationalism when people sing “Mameli’s Hymn.”

Maybe the danger of a revolution is exaggerated. Many Italians, however, believe that the real worry is not the virus but its potential legacy upon our freedoms and our society.