When tourists land at Milan Malpensa Airport, health workers take the temperature of each traveller. Only having passed this test, they can proceed to the immigration procedures. The air terminal looks deserted, and absolute silence is only interrupted by sporadic announcements through the speakers. There are few people who come to the Italian fashion capital, and there are many posters on the walls warning of precautions against coronavirus that has already left more than 3,000 people dead worldwide.
However, once in the city, you find no panic that the Italian and international media have been portraying. In Milan, life goes on, but in slow motion. The Duomo Square is almost empty, although it usually attracts huge crowds of people, and there are empty seats on transport even at rush hours.
Neither Fear nor Masks
“Personally, I’m not afraid. There are many people who think that the plague has come or the Third World War. But in my opinion, the first to die are those who are afraid,” Antonio, an Italian working in the transportation sector, said.
His opinion coincides with the opinion of the rest of the Milanese.
“I’m not at all afraid! Everything is exaggerated. Our politicians don’t know how to deal with this crisis. They have blocked Italy and Milan, and we will pay for the consequences of this panic as if it were the Spanish flu [the great pandemic of 1918],” Adriana said. Despite being over 65 years old, she doesn’t restrain her desire to go out and walk along the Duomo Square.
Unlike the affected areas in China, in Italian streets, it’s quite difficult to find people who have their nose and mouth covered. Both the government and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend that it is only the sick that use this protection. On the other hand, most drug stores display posters saying that they have run out of face masks.
Tourist Dilemma: Is it Safe to Visit Italy?
“We had already booked the tickets, then we saw the news and took the necessary precautions without any panic. We bought face masks and hand sanitizers,” Jasmine, a British tourist who came to Milan with her daughter and grandchildren, explained.
“'Cancel the trip! You’ll get sick', our family told us, but all the infected villages in Italy are already isolated. There is no reason for people not to come to Milan or Rome, or to any other country. Everyone is slowly contracting the virus and eventually it will be all over the world. So what are you going to do? Lock yourself up? For how many weeks? For two months? Three months? Four months?” the tourist wondered.
Samantha, a young Ecuadorian, has a rather unusual vacation in Milan: “Everything is closed. There is nothing to do.”
The Italian authorities have taken note of this and that is why the Milan Cathedral (Duomo) reopened on 2 March, and the La Scala Theatre will open its doors on 8 March. Bars can also remain open after 6 pm. In this way, despite the fact that in three regions – Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia Romagna – school classes are still suspended, the north of the country is slowly seeking to return to normal.
The WHO doesn’t recommend cancelling trips either.
“Travelers shouldn’t suspend their plans, but they have to consider the restrictions imposed by airlines when planning their trips,” Dr Carmen Dolea, Head of International Health Regulations Secretariat at WHO, said.
Why does Italy Register So Many Infected?
Italy has gone from being the country that was one step ahead of the rest of the European countries in containing the coronavirus in late January to being the country with the highest number of infections and deaths from COVID-19 after China. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte admitted that he was “surprised” by the increase in the number of infected.
“Of course, we do more checks, so we find more infected. How come that London has less infected than Codogno, which is a small commune in Lombardy,” Andrea said sitting at a bar in central Milan.
As of 1 March, Italy took 21,127 smears to check for infection, which was confirmed at a press conference by Angelo Borrelli, Head of the Civil Protection. For comparison, until 26 February, France has conducted about 762 tests. The closest to Italy on the continent is the UK with 11,750 smears taken in early March.
In January, Italian health authorities began mandatory monitoring of suspicious cases without strict selection criteria. In other European countries, tests were only taken on patients who had similar symptoms and who had contact with someone at risk for the previous 14 days.
Since 25 February, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has updated the classification criteria for coronavirus cases, and since then Italy has checked only people who meet these criteria.
“I Feel That if I Have the Virus, I Won’t Die”
However, in the past few days, Italy’s mainstream media and the national government have stopped the panic and started talking about the number of infected people recovering. The authorities closely follow the news and publicly denounce when they detect any fake news, such as the massive closure of schools.
Italy has realized that spreading panic was not an obstacle to curbing the epidemic. The virus has already appeared in the country, and public campaigns have been launched to inform the public about preventive actions. In addition, doctors and the emergency committee members keep saying that those killed by the COVID-19 outbreak are people who had a pre-existing serious condition.
“I feel that if I have the virus, I won’t die,” Samira, a 30-year-old Ecuadorian who emigrated to Milan three years ago, said. Like everyone else who lives in Italy, Samira knows that in Italy, the coronavirus killed only people over 75 who had other pathologies, with one exception: a 62-year-old man. However, he suffered heart problems and underwent dialysis.
According to the Civil Protection data, more than 50 per cent of those infected in Italy are isolated at home with mild symptoms and don’t need hospital treatment. For comparison, about 160 deaths and about 8.7 million infections were recorded in Italy during the last flu season.
However, at the moment there is neither a vaccine, nor cure for the coronavirus, but scientists already believe that the virus will become a seasonal infection similar to the flu. President Sergio Mattarella says he is seeking to put an end to sensationalism in the media: “Knowledge is a strong antidote to irrational fears.”
