When La Vita Bella Turns Ugly

I always thought I might get caught up in a global health crisis. I didn’t think it would happen in Italy.

I’ve worked in the field of global health for almost two decades. I’ve observed maternal health programs in Ethiopia and learned about digital health initiatives in Tanzania, and I’ve spent years documenting work in disaster zones like post-earthquake Haiti, tsunami-swept Japan, and drought-devastated Kenya.

But Italy was not intended to be that kind of trip. My husband Mark and I spend more than a month in Italy each year. We are both Italian-American and we use these trips to study Italian and dive deep into a particular city while working remotely with our offices in Seattle. This year we stuck our pin in Palermo, Sicily, a city known for its fantastic street food, amazing opera, and dark mafia past.

When we left for Palermo in mid-February, coronavirus — or COVID-19 — was mainly a Chinese problem. There were just a handful of cases reported in Italy, all in and around the town of Codogno, which is far away in the northern province of Lombardy. When we entered the airport, earnest-looking health workers aimed temperature guns at our foreheads and we were declared safe to enter.

For us, Palermo was love at first sight. It’s gorgeous and enchanting. Our first week went swimmingly as we coped with the usual light-hearted challenges of jet lag, getting into the groove of Italian classes, and figuring out which local market has the best cheeses and produce.

Ten days later, it was a different story. There were more than 600 cases of COVID-19 in Italy, mostly concentrated in the northern provinces of Lombardy and Veneto, but also a smattering of cases in Rome and even a case in Palermo. Wide swathes of the north were in what’s called the “red zone” where schools were cancelled, people were told to work from home, and life was on lockdown.

The Italian media, never known for its restraint, was in a full-blown panic and ramping up public anxiety. Political infighting started almost immediately, with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte appealing for calm and his political opponents alleging he’d botched the public health response. Italian prosecutors launched an investigation into a Codogno hospital that allegedly mishandled the case of the man thought to be Italy’s “patient zero” by repeatedly failing to test him for COVID-19 — and allowing him to be in contact with more than a dozen people in the interim.

In the meantime, we fled to an unexpectedly safer place — Ethiopia — for a few days of rest and sightseeing. The perspective of being in a new location made us realize that we had to go home. The decision-making matrix was difficult and predicated on shifting and incomplete information.

We are not fearful for our health; both Mark and I are relatively young and healthy. But we are fearful of staying long enough that we’ll get stuck in Italy, blocked out by a travel restriction, or quarantined once we go home. The worst-case scenario would be getting sick in a foreign country or becoming a health risk to people at home.

But things are constantly changing. At this writing, there are more than 3000 confirmed cases of coronoavirus in Italy and 100+ deaths. At the same time, our home state has emerged as a US hotspot with 28 cases and 10 deaths in Washington. This includes the first death in the U.S. at a hospital in Kirkland, where an entire retirement community is under lockdown.

With a global virus, there’s nowhere that’s safe. It’s all about getting the best information possible, mitigating risks, and being prepared. We feel like we’re better prepared to do all of that from Seattle — where we have networks and known medical providers — instead of Palermo.

There’s not much to like about coronavirus, but I do appreciate that it’s making people think about public health rather than strictly personal health. This is a virus that preys on our connections, challenges our established behaviors, and forces us to consider how our actions impact others. For example, we’re considering whether or not we should self-quarantine when we return home to protect our friends and neighbors — just in case.

This all assumes we can make the trip home. Delta Airlines and American Airlines recently announced that they are stopping flights in and out of parts of northern Italy to the U.S. Our flight is scheduled for Friday and we’re hoping to get out before additional travel restrictions are imposed.

Wish us luck.