Stay at home! An update from Milan, Italy
This is my update from Milan, Italy and on our recent lock-down because of the Coronavirus. My aim is to explain what is happening at the moment, why this is happening and how we reached this point. Whilst article refers to Italy, it is a message for everyone around the world, who might experience the same consequences as we do now, if the necessary precautions are not taken.
Italy at the moment is on a complete lock-down.
What does this mean exactly? Firstly, all citizens are required to stay in their homes. You can go out to walk your dog, go for a run (although it might be banned pretty soon) or rush to the pharmacy, but that is pretty much it. Secondly, any type of travel — even within a city — is heavily restricted and you can be stopped at any moment by the police even if you are driving a car. Thirdly, everything — besides absolute necessities (pharmacies & supermarkets) — is closed for the next two weeks.
Why did this happen? Well simply put, if people kept getting sick at the rate they were in the past two weeks, the Italian health-care system would have collapsed. And before anyone assumes it’s Italy and their healthcare system must not be well-organized — it is one of the world’s finest.
How did we get here? There can be many explanations, but I would like to point out first and foremost the unclear communication towards citizens.
From the moment the virus broke out in China the media went crazy. The information we received as citizens was either that we are all doomed or that this is just another flu. At the time the first cases appeared in Italy, the media went ahead and represented the situation as if we were already living in an apocalypse. Everyone who actually was in Milan at the time, saw that the city was calm — with somewhat less people around — but it looked nothing like the media was depicting it.
This was followed by numerous articles that would quote experts and doctors saying that this is just another flu. I lost count of how many times I heard experts tell us to stay calm it really isn’t that bad. And I get it — there had to be a reaction to the overreaction of the media, but I sincerely don’t understand why we couldn’t have received a clear message like — guys, this will spread very very quickly, in Italy with the number of elderly this will be devastating, and also for a lot of you it will not be like a little flu, it will be a lot more like a severe case of pneumonia.
Furthermore, the effect on the elderly was not emphasized enough. The initial communication aimed at treating all citizens as if we were the same: they would present the general average mortality rate and impose rules that seemed like we all had the same chances of getting sick and having severe consequences, whilst it was clearly never the case.
They closed schools and asked whoever could to work from home. This led to thousands of parents not knowing where to leave their children over the day and that is when grandparents came into play. I remember watching it on the news, the anchor was proudly saying that the grandparents can now take a more active role in the children’s lives. People did not understand that whilst, yes for a large number of young people (and even then there are many exceptions) this illness will not be severe, for the elderly it’s beyond dangerous.
A few weeks in, the communication on the devastating effects on the elderly began — which once again was done in a way that it made it seem like if you are young nothing can happen to you. Young people were going out and socializing — and when stopped by reporters (see in video) they would say that they are young, they can’t get sick, so who cares.
It was absolutely not stressed enough how you as a young person, whilst likely to stay healthy (emphasis on likely), are the perfect carrier and spreader of the virus. It was also not stressed enough how easily this virus could spread, and how everyone’s actions were of the highest importance.
This was always and now continues to be more than ever about us as a community — because the healthier the community — the healthier we and our loved ones will be.
This is what should have been emphasized from the beginning. This virus is serious, it spreads incredibly easily and we are all responsible to not carry it around even if it means a few personal sacrifices. Don’t forget, you might be infected and never show symptoms. Most importantly, if you can, minimize contact and self-isolate. That proves to be by far the most efficient method in containing the virus.
Wherever you are — follow your government’s guidelines; think of others who might be more vulnerable than you; and please, stay at home and keep yourself safe.
