As coronavirus spreads around the world, Italy finds itself as one of the hotspots, with more than 300 cases and eleven official deaths. This means Italy has the world’s third highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19.
The outbreak is centred in the north. Eleven cities in the area are currently on lockdown, with schools and restaurants forced to shut down since last week.
Although the area’s capital Milan – a city of over 1.3 million people – is not on lockdown yet, bars museums and universities have been closed and many events at the recent Milan Fashion Week were cancelled.
The Italian authorities have advised people not to travel to and from Milan, and if they do they may be tested. The UK government is asking citizens who have visited any of the eleven infected cities to isolate themselves for fourteen days, with or without symptoms.
My parents live in Milan and and so I asked them how it was to live in the city at the moment.
Both my mother and my father work in the centre and said that the panic began over the weekend. “Everybody is so worried at the moment! All newspapers’ frontpages are dedicated to coronavirus. That’s everybody’s favourite subject,” my mother told me. Streets in the centre of town are empty and the few people who are there are wearing masks at all times. Businesses are asking their employees to work from home so that they can avoid using public transport.
The panic means that supermarkets are running out of food and medical supplies. Shelves are often completely empty and my mother found it hard to find any food to buy at the weekend. “I wasn’t panicking before, but after seeing everybody stocking up for food and hand sanitisers, I got so paranoid I started buying anything I could find left on the shelves”, she said. Canned food and pasta are particularly popular with those who are stockpiling, she added.
Gyms and schools are currently closed and many football matches have been called off. “I cannot remember the last time a football match was cancelled in Milan,” my father told me on the phone. “I know a lot of hard-core football fans are angry at the decision, but I think it was the right thing to do for everybody’s safety”.
Although London so far only has 13 confirmed cases of the virus, could a bigger outbreak throw the capital into the same panic as Milan? Watch this space!
