Italy's coronavirus ground zero sets virtuous example
For three weeks, children's play hasn't echoed in the primary piazza of the city of Codogno, overlooked by a statue of the town's patron St. Blaise, a 4th-Century physician. But over that period, too, the silence has been pierced increasingly less often by ambulance sirens, which in the early days roared through every handful of hours.
The northern town that recorded Italy's first coronavirus infection has offered a virtuous example to fellow Italians now facing an unprecedented nationwide lockdown - that by staying home, trends can reverse. Infections of the brand new virus have not stopped in Codogno, which still has registered the almost all of any of the 10 Lombardy towns in Italy's original red zone, nevertheless they have slowed.
In the city of 16,000 located close to the Po River about 60 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Milan, most everyone knows someone among the nearly 200 infected with the virus, or the 34 who've died. When news went this week that there have been zero new infections in the previous a day, media hopes of eradication were exaggerated. But the trend appears to be real - and among the reasons that led Premier Giuseppe Conte to impose a series of draconian new measures over the countries this week.
Five new infections were registered Wednesday, weighed against 35 a trip to the beginning of the outbreak, said Mayor Francesco Passerini, who like a lot of people in the city wears a mask and who has mourned far away with friends who lost their fathers.
"It is a war. It is a war, but we've every probability of winning," Passerini said. "Unlike with our grandfathers, who went physically into battle for our freedom, we are being necessary to show responsibility - responsibility and calm." Those whose lives the virus has claimed include Umberto Falchetti, 86, who helped turn the MTA car pieces business founded by his father into among the city's major industrial concerns, supplying Fiat Chrysler and Renault, among others.
"He was healthy, he previously no conditions," his daughter, Maria Vittoria Falchetti, told The Associated Press by telephone. He died within a week of decreasing with a fever.
Over three weeks, residents have become accustomed to their isolation from the world, and from each other. They mostly wear masks if they do venture out - not as a requirement but "as an act of attention most importantly to avoid contagion to others," Passerini said.
Handshake greetings are replaced with new types of acknowledgment - a reliable gaze, say. "We must make it our very own," the mayor said of the still-awkward passage of customs.Despite having the masks, residents steadfastly follow the 1-meter distance rule, because they wait outside a bank to settle payments, a pharmacy to have their prescriptions filled, or a bakery for a couple provisions.
As the rest of Italy has had to adapt to rapidly changing measures, the pace within Codogno hasn't really changed since the first diagnosis was confirmed on Feb. 21 - not even when police and army barricades came down earlier this week when Lombardy became one big containment zone.
"Greater than a sigh of relief, there was some concern over the chance that of the sacrifices were in vain," Passerini said of the opening. "We are continuing with this virtuous behaviors. We've gotten used to them, with the expectation that emergency ends immediately, not only in Codogno however in the rest of the country and Europe."
So while people can no longer attend Mass or swap news at a café, a local parish radio station has stepped in to partially fill that gap, transmitting Mass and prayer, along with bulletins from the civil protection agency and messages from the mayor.
Trains no longer visit the station -- no person is certainly going anywhere anyway. And shops for non-essentials like apparel and bicycles that opened long enough to post signs instructing customers that they need to wear a mask to enter, are shuttered anew.
"Codogno has been around the spotlight since the initial day," said Rosy Ronisvalle, who stopped at a newsstand her way home from the pharmacy this week to pick up a magazine on her behalf 4-year-old daughter. "We've behaved well."
Nonetheless it has been with great personal sacrifice.
Ronisvalle improvised meals after shops - including supermarkets - were ordered closed Feb. 21 at 4 p.m., leaving her with a clear refrigerator, and arranged play on her behalf 2-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter, who've not been outside since. Beside protecting them, she must also protect her mother, who has finished chemotherapy and who was simply scheduled for urgent surgery before lockdown made travel beyond your red zone impossible.
"Her situation is delicate, and doctors (initially) said, 'Let's operate right away, we don't have time to lose,'" Ronisvalle said. "Now, unfortunately, there is a lot of time to reduce because of the demands on hospitals. There aren't enough beds in intensive look after her, because after being operated on, obviously she would have to get into intensive care."
They are actually awaiting surgery to be scheduled. "This is just another problem that coronavirus may bring to families," she said.
