While many countries have also gone on lockdown, Italy has become the second most hit country by the coronavirus, also known as COVID19. The number of deaths has surpassed China, hospitals are full, and people are stuck in their homes.

As an Italian, I can’t help but being really worried about my country and my family. As of today, 17th April, Italy counts:

106.607 current cases, 22.170 deaths and 40.164 healed, for a total of 168.941 confirmed cases.

How it all began

The first two cases of Coronavirus found in Italy were a Chinese couple on 30th January, in Rome. But the first case of secondary transmission was found on the 18th of February in the North of Italy, in a city called Codogno. It was 38-year-old man.

That is when it all went down. Panic started spreading between people while others were trying to stay calm, telling everybody nothing bad was going to happen. In those first days, I was back home in Italy for Spring holidays, and let me tell you, you could hear so many different opinions. Everyone was talking about it, no one knew what was to come. In Lombardy, cases rate started increasing, many cities were put on quarantine. That is when, not only in the North but all over Italy, people started going out with face masks and gloves. It felt like a sci-fi movie. That is also when the first death from Coronavirus was confirmed.

The lockdown

On 4th March, Italy counted more than 500 cases and 100 deaths. All schools were shut down and many more cities were put in quarantine. Though, people were finding ways to escape and go back to the South, to their families. That is what spread the virus all over Italy and what brought the government to take some drastic decisions. A new decree was supposed to come out stating that the whole North of Italy was to be put on quarantine, forbidding all movements to the South. Somehow, this new law leaked before it was official and public. Many people, in complete panic, took trains by assault and ran away from the North to avoid being stuck. That is most probably when the virus spread all over the country. And that is also when our president (got super mad and) decided to put the whole country on lockdown. All the 20 regions in Italy were quarantined, all schools were closed, no one was allowed to leave the house. Only one person is allowed to bring the dog outside, for example, and go for groceries.

Not losing hope

Even though no one was happy with these decisions, Italians did not lose faith and they started coming together more than ever: they were singing from their balconies, Italian artists would livestream small concerts, many started cooking pizza in the homes (for real, everyone was making pizza at one point) while supporting each other on social media.

Right now, the quarantine is scheduled to end on 3rd May even thought that might not be the case.

I try to stay positive and hope it’ll be over soon so that I can go back home to be with my family. Hopefully, the situation in the Netherlands won’t escalate as much as it did in Italy.

Fingers crossed and let’s keep our hopes high!