Day 14

It has been two weeks now that Italy, the world’s center of active coronavirus cases with 50,418 cases at present – more than double the number of active cases of any other country — is in national lockdown. As of March 19, Italy became the country with the highest number of confirmed deaths in the world.

Today, with some very cautious optimism, Italians embraced the statistic that for the second day in a row, the daily percentage rate of newly diagnosed cases fell. It is still appallingly high, but for a nation whose citizens have for fourteen days made their homes their piazzas, their restaurants, their workplaces, their school rooms, their playgrounds and their bars, this is a cause for, at last, a catching of the breath.

Italian media reports continuing infractions of citizens who flagrantly and/or cunningly break the strict rules of lockdown.

My Florentine friend Francesca, when I asked her if Tuscans were adhering to all the rules, said quickly “all of them, but look at what is happening in the south !” I could hear her sucking in her breath, while in the background the 1 PM telegiornale reported news of southerners who were flaunting the sanctions. Francesca, exhausted after standing in line for three hours that morning to complete her weekly shopping, was incensed by an event the day before Barletta (in the heel region of Puglia) where, she reported, “numerous people were wandering the town, enjoying strolls in the sun, while others were caught harvesting mussels.” She added : “che vergogna !” (“what a disgrace !”) 

The mayor of Matera, in Basilicata, has issued an emotional plea to citizens in the north who might try to sneak back : “please, in a gesture of responsibility and generosity, do not try to return. Think of your loved ones here, whose life you will put at risk. We are the weak link of the national health system and we cannot be put to the test.” 

Yesterday the governor of Sicily, his face flushed with rage, once again prohibited mainlanders from crossing the straits of Messina. “You damage your island, trying to escape here after your northern schools and factories have been closed. Observe the regulations : go back where you came from !”

Today the government announced that 92,367 citizens had, since the day lockdown was applied nationally, been charged for breaking the rules. “We must do better. You must do better” stated the interior ministry.

A new decree went into effect today, shuttering all non-essential production. Factories involved have three days to prepare and must be closed by March 25. People have also been barred from moving from one town to another; drone use has been authorized to monitor movement in communities where there is a suspicion of unauthorized behavior.

Meanwhile, Giocondo of Furore (in the Campania region) is busy foraging wild asparagus. With an onion from his neighbor’s garden, his own wine and oil, he has all he wants for a simple lunch of pasta with asparagus. 

He is lucky to have the hills of his childhood as destinations for very short walks, each of which invariably brings some reflection. This evening he writes : “when I was born, Furore had only one form of illumination, the candle. There was no town lighting. The village was one well-cultivated garden, and every corner was looked after and loved. Now we have high tension power lines, plastic sheeting to prevent rockfalls, and street lights that illuminate what ? Our man made disaster ? Up till very recently, people here were able to navigate their way perfectly well around the village, with its hundreds of steps, in the dark. We could see perfectly well. Why all these lights, which blind us from seeing the moon, the stars, the sky above our heads ? What are we afraid of that we cannot ever turn off the light ? ” 

On March 21, he wrote me : “once again I see that the natural world is regaining some of the space that man usurped from it. And the swifts came back today from Africa, flying back on the equinox, the day they always returned when I was a small child — but have not for decades! If man at last can stop dominating nature, there is an incredible possibility for its self regeneration.”

Too small for us to see, but there are swifts whirling around the ever-bluer, ever-less-polluted sky in this view from Furore down to Praiano.

When I called him this evening to see how he was, he was repairing the hoe that was used by his father and other elders.

He said, with the sincerity that is the essence of Giocondo : “the lockdown has given me the time to observe nature carefully. Nature has signalled that unless humans change their lifestyle, there will be an inescapable global calamity.

When this is finished, I am going to take into my life all that I have learned in these weeks. I am not going to forget.”

A domani.