elbows
Well-Known Member
The number that scares me most in many ways:
From Coronavirus Italy: PM extends lockdown to entire country
From Coronavirus Italy: PM extends lockdown to entire country
il virus: covid-19 in italy
- Thread starter Flavour
- Start date
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
NOTES FROM A QUARANTINE COUNTRY // N.2
Over the past few days we’ve been oscillating constantly between panic and a kind of devil-may-care attitude, between feeling like we’re in a bourgeois novel and a pulp science fiction: everyone’s trying to get on with their usual humdrum lives – the arguments, romances, work emails, deciding what to cook for lunch – while the television blares 24/7 announcements about emergency laws, death rates and mass migration. It’s hard not to live it all as a metaphor. We’re in a kind of semi-self-quarantine. I’m trying to ration myself to 5 minutes of TV/hour. No one quite understands the rules – the rules keep changing every couple of days anyway as the contagion spreads, and always seem to be more drastic than feels necessary: but how could the gradual repression of all sociality ever feel necessary. You go down to the shops and eye people up. You make vague attempts to stay one metre away from people and look suspiciously at passers-by who sneeze into their hands.
The emergency decrees came one after the other, with unpredictable knock-on effects. The schools and universities were all closed, so my school-teacher housemate is frantically putting course material online. The closure also meant, however, that all the young people went out in the evenings more than ever and the nightlife boomed: people went out dancing and drinking. Quarantine by day, party by night. My other housemate posted a photo of the jam-packed bars which went viral. Then the state put out a series of decrees closing bars and clubs, and half-closing restaurants.
But the state responses are full of contradictions. Cultural events and cinemas are closed, but shopping centres and bookies remain open. Everything in the tourist sector is on ice but the big call centres stay open. The latest decree says all movements are discourages or banned – except for work and ‘necessity’ whatever that means. Restaurants have to put their tables apart and follow very strict rules to remain open so instead everyone – from both supply and demand side – is utilizing take-aways and related apps, which means the city is full of poorly-paid, un-insured cyclists moving food around, precisely the hyper-mobile, precarious labour force that symbolizes this crisis. An instagram account popped up: “Sweet quarantine – we'll bring you whatever you need while using preventative measures: food, alcohol, cigarettes, books, medicine...”
Another side-effect – which apparently also happened in China – was that as soon as the quarantine of the Northern provinces was announced – or actually leaked a few hours before – there was a mass-migration down South, so the measures taken to prevent contagion might have actually been partly counter-active. Just tonight these ‘orange zones’ have been extended to the whole country, and we’re waiting to see if this means we can’t travel between cities or even within our own cities…. And despite the President doing a live address about everyone needing to be responsible and to stick to the spirit of the law rather than the letter the announcement was immediately followed up by people rushing to 24hour stores to stock up….
Last week I could write about funny lunches and Chinese stores closing. Now I have friends in quarantine (who’ve returned from up North, and have to self-quarantine at home for 2 weeks, or face criminal charges) and we’re trying to figure out what the hell the poorest and most oppressed people in our city are going to do. I suppose the self-quarantine has a light-hearted side to it – “I’ve got some books, a little weed, a bottle of gin.” But then I’ve also got several friends in prison here, and many who have been in prison. One of the government decrees has been to cancel all prison visits till the end of May, even though the other measures only go to the beginning of April. Perhaps this is a case of experimenting on the imprisoned or simply extra-cautious measures taken because of the crowded conditions inside. Obviously the crowding means everyone is scared of an outbreak in the prisons and want out. But then it got heavy, really heavy. A series of protests and riots across the country culminated last night in six inmates being killed in Modena. We still have no idea what happened: the demands being made by ‘Antigone’ (a democratic-reformist prison monitoring group) is for telephone calls and the broadening out of alternative measures, e.g. house arrest. The Modena prison is probably being closed today. This morning some detainees tried to escape from one of the Palermo prisons. I didn’t call the guys in the detention centre today, I didn’t want to know what’s going on, to have to confront it. And then we’ve got to understand what’s going on in the biggest homeless shelter in the city, which has hundreds of people with terrible hygiene conditions crammed into warehouses, mattresses side by side.
I’ve been thinking all day about how to leave this on a positive note of some kind, and all I’ve got is that this feels like a sharp, overwhelming shock that we need to absorb to then be prepared for the road ahead. The freedoms that are being signed away one decree at a time might be necessary sacrifices, but they’re going to be difficult to win back. Like someone just grabbed the globe, stopped it, and started spinning it on a different axis.
Over the past few days we’ve been oscillating constantly between panic and a kind of devil-may-care attitude, between feeling like we’re in a bourgeois novel and a pulp science fiction: everyone’s trying to get on with their usual humdrum lives – the arguments, romances, work emails, deciding what to cook for lunch – while the television blares 24/7 announcements about emergency laws, death rates and mass migration. It’s hard not to live it all as a metaphor. We’re in a kind of semi-self-quarantine. I’m trying to ration myself to 5 minutes of TV/hour. No one quite understands the rules – the rules keep changing every couple of days anyway as the contagion spreads, and always seem to be more drastic than feels necessary: but how could the gradual repression of all sociality ever feel necessary. You go down to the shops and eye people up. You make vague attempts to stay one metre away from people and look suspiciously at passers-by who sneeze into their hands.
The emergency decrees came one after the other, with unpredictable knock-on effects. The schools and universities were all closed, so my school-teacher housemate is frantically putting course material online. The closure also meant, however, that all the young people went out in the evenings more than ever and the nightlife boomed: people went out dancing and drinking. Quarantine by day, party by night. My other housemate posted a photo of the jam-packed bars which went viral. Then the state put out a series of decrees closing bars and clubs, and half-closing restaurants.
But the state responses are full of contradictions. Cultural events and cinemas are closed, but shopping centres and bookies remain open. Everything in the tourist sector is on ice but the big call centres stay open. The latest decree says all movements are discourages or banned – except for work and ‘necessity’ whatever that means. Restaurants have to put their tables apart and follow very strict rules to remain open so instead everyone – from both supply and demand side – is utilizing take-aways and related apps, which means the city is full of poorly-paid, un-insured cyclists moving food around, precisely the hyper-mobile, precarious labour force that symbolizes this crisis. An instagram account popped up: “Sweet quarantine – we'll bring you whatever you need while using preventative measures: food, alcohol, cigarettes, books, medicine...”
Another side-effect – which apparently also happened in China – was that as soon as the quarantine of the Northern provinces was announced – or actually leaked a few hours before – there was a mass-migration down South, so the measures taken to prevent contagion might have actually been partly counter-active. Just tonight these ‘orange zones’ have been extended to the whole country, and we’re waiting to see if this means we can’t travel between cities or even within our own cities…. And despite the President doing a live address about everyone needing to be responsible and to stick to the spirit of the law rather than the letter the announcement was immediately followed up by people rushing to 24hour stores to stock up….
Last week I could write about funny lunches and Chinese stores closing. Now I have friends in quarantine (who’ve returned from up North, and have to self-quarantine at home for 2 weeks, or face criminal charges) and we’re trying to figure out what the hell the poorest and most oppressed people in our city are going to do. I suppose the self-quarantine has a light-hearted side to it – “I’ve got some books, a little weed, a bottle of gin.” But then I’ve also got several friends in prison here, and many who have been in prison. One of the government decrees has been to cancel all prison visits till the end of May, even though the other measures only go to the beginning of April. Perhaps this is a case of experimenting on the imprisoned or simply extra-cautious measures taken because of the crowded conditions inside. Obviously the crowding means everyone is scared of an outbreak in the prisons and want out. But then it got heavy, really heavy. A series of protests and riots across the country culminated last night in six inmates being killed in Modena. We still have no idea what happened: the demands being made by ‘Antigone’ (a democratic-reformist prison monitoring group) is for telephone calls and the broadening out of alternative measures, e.g. house arrest. The Modena prison is probably being closed today. This morning some detainees tried to escape from one of the Palermo prisons. I didn’t call the guys in the detention centre today, I didn’t want to know what’s going on, to have to confront it. And then we’ve got to understand what’s going on in the biggest homeless shelter in the city, which has hundreds of people with terrible hygiene conditions crammed into warehouses, mattresses side by side.
I’ve been thinking all day about how to leave this on a positive note of some kind, and all I’ve got is that this feels like a sharp, overwhelming shock that we need to absorb to then be prepared for the road ahead. The freedoms that are being signed away one decree at a time might be necessary sacrifices, but they’re going to be difficult to win back. Like someone just grabbed the globe, stopped it, and started spinning it on a different axis.
Yossarian
⏭️
This comparison of how Hong Kong and Italy handled outbreaks was an interesting read - Hong Kong may have only delayed the inevitable, but, at massive cost, it at least bought itself more time to prepare.
afludiary.blogspot.com
A Tale of Two Outbreaks: Hong Kong & Italy
Flattening the Curve - Credit CDC #15,024 Up until two weeks ago Italy had but 3 known COVID-19 cases. Today the EC...
afludiary.blogspot.com
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
This comparison of how Hong Kong and Italy handled outbreaks was an interesting read - Hong Kong may have only delayed the inevitable, but, at massive cost, it at least bought itself more time to prepare.
A Tale of Two Outbreaks: Hong Kong & Italy
Flattening the Curve - Credit CDC #15,024 Up until two weeks ago Italy had but 3 known COVID-19 cases. Today the EC...
HK's mask supply is being replenished whilst there are so few cases while Italy will start to run out as the cases mount.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
It shouldn't have been leaked but properly enforced.
One would hope these people who moved have the good sense to quarantine.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Maggot
The Cake of Liberty
Just heard from a friend in Rome. It doesn't sound too bad at the moment. She had to queue up to get into her local supermarket and people in the queue stood 1m apart. The shelves were well stocked and it wasn't panic buying, more slightly nervous buying. But this is just the first day of the lockdown . . .
Flavour
hang the bankers
shops are open and yes italy is largely food self-sufficient
Cloo
Banana for scale
Well, I guess we have apples? Ooh, it might be asparagus season soon!
British apples are from storage this time of year, and are pretty much over.
We have leeks and brocolli and parsnips. and jerusalem artichokes, so you'll be able to be self sufficient power-wise if you run some gas turbines off your farts.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Coronavirus, i sindaci di Regione Lombardia vogliono il coprifuoco totale
Il presidente lombardo, Attilio Fontana: «È il tempo della fermezza. Ho incontrato i primi cittadini dei capoluoghi lombardi, chiedono tutti la stessa cosa: chiudere tutto adesso (tranne i servizi essenziali) per ripartire il prima possibile»
www.sondriotoday.it
Fez909
toilet expert
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
No problem with that myself! I've got a copy of 'food for free' that I was intending on giving a more thorough run out this year...
hash tag
Books, not bombs
Venice is empty 
. I would be happy to visit now
www.skylinewebcams.com
. I would be happy to visit now
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
So many people here happy to buy stuff at wilkos even though it's widely known wilkos is so cheap because they use prison slave labour
spitfire
Walty McWaltface
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Those prison riots are grim. 11 dead including 7 at one prison from overdoses after they broke into the prison pharmacy.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Netflix and chill-the-fuck-out.
phillm
Trolling through Life (TM)
Grim reading.
nypost.com
The doctor urged people not to describe Covid-19 as a bad case of the flu.
“Now, explain to me which flu virus causes such a rapid drama. … And while there are still people who boast of not being afraid by ignoring directions, protesting because their normal routine is ‘temporarily’ put in crisis, the epidemiological disaster is taking place,” he said.
“And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us.
Italian doctor at heart of illness shares chilling coronavirus thoughts
An Italian doctor at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak that has placed the country under lockdown has painted a grim picture of the deadly illness.
nypost.com
The doctor urged people not to describe Covid-19 as a bad case of the flu.
“Now, explain to me which flu virus causes such a rapid drama. … And while there are still people who boast of not being afraid by ignoring directions, protesting because their normal routine is ‘temporarily’ put in crisis, the epidemiological disaster is taking place,” he said.
“And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us.
Flavour
hang the bankers
some positive news: codogno, the town which is thought to be the source of the original outbreak, has reported 0 new cases for yesterday, the first time this has happened since tests started.
negative news: total cases close to 10,000 (will certainly pass this mark today), each day's number of new cases is bigger than the last, deaths are over 600, will be 700 by the end of the day i'm fairly sure.
negative news: total cases close to 10,000 (will certainly pass this mark today), each day's number of new cases is bigger than the last, deaths are over 600, will be 700 by the end of the day i'm fairly sure.
Sasaferrato
Super Refuser!
I wonder why Italy seems to be being hit so hard in comparison to other countries?
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
It seems they failed to pick-up on early cases, so it was left to spread rapidly.
Before the first case was reported, there was an unusually high number of pneumonia cases recorded at a hospital in Codogno in northern Italy, the head of the emergency ward Stefano Paglia told the newspaper La Repubblica, suggesting it is possible patients with the virus were treated as if they had a seasonal flu. Health facilities hosting these patients could have become sites for infection, helping proliferate the spread of the virus.
Why Is the Coronavirus Outbreak So Bad in Italy?
Italy has placed its 60 millions resident under quarantine, as the number of coronavirus cases throughout the country continues to rise.time.com
The scary bit is that other countries, including the UK, may have missed early cases & could take off just as rapidly.
Fez909
toilet expert
We are already taking off as rapidly. We're just time-shifted. It's going to be the same here.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
I do wonder whether mainland Europe's kissing habit is hurting them compared to the UK and Scandinavia.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
it's not making them any better
