I am in Italy with my two youngest children while my older son is in college in the US and my truly grown and flown is working.
When China started reporting cases of Corona I went about my day. I went to Italian class and marveled at how fast they were throwing hospitals up in Wuhan. Let that marinate for a minute. Throwing up entire hospitals in 8 days. That alone should have given the world a moment to sit up.
Did we? No. We went about our day. Then we started hearing about cases in Milan and Veneto. (Veneto is kind of the equivalent to a state. My state.)
Still, we didn’t take anything serious. We started washing our hands more but still nothing out of the ordinary. Then they suspended school for a few days because our host nation did. We still went shopping, were planning trips, this was just a few extra days off. Right? Wrong.
Today starts week four. School has been canceled indefinitely. My kids’ teacher has begun discussing testing in her emails.
What started as “Whoa! Look at China has quickly become WOW! It’s in Italy.”
We need a physical piece of paper to leave our house. We are not allowed to go in groups. Only one person is supposed to do our weekly shopping. If you need that one thing you forgot for dinner, suck it up and try a new flavor because you aren’t popping into the store.
Yesterday my 7 year-old was complaining her throat hurt and she had a tiny fever. I have never started second-guessing everything I’ve done these last month faster.
I second guessed letting them go outside because it was an amazing day and they’ve been cooped up.
I second guessed not spraying everything coming in the house with bleach.
I second guessed that day we went to the track on post to burn off energy.
We have allergies. Bad allergies. It is spring here. Is it probably our allergies? Yes. But even thinking there is a possibility of it being worse is scaring my normally smart mouth, sarcastic, flip self into an anxiety attack.
My neighbors are old. I don’t want my 30 minutes of outside play to be the cause of someone’s death.
So friends and family in the United States. You are in the beginning stages. You are where we were a few months ago. Please take this seriously.
Italy is a very social country. We went out. Ate in restaurants. Had coffee. Now we are banging pots on our balconies and singing in solidarity because we can’t leave our house. Honestly, I really don’t want to.
I hate watching the US go down this road…PLEASE PAY ATTENTION.
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