Front Line Report Coronavirus

The real story from the FRONT Lines of the coronavirus war! For those here that don’t know my two daughters live in Italy. I frequently talk with them via Facebook video. At least once a week, sometimes twice a week. They are confused as to why I’m so worried about them. My daughter Erika lives in Northern Italy, in the RED ZONE. Below is a picture she sent from Friday 13 March. She’s 7 months pregnant and doing fine. However this morning Saturday she canceled our call because she is in the hospital for an overnight stay. She has been having problems with high blood pressure and headaches. So the doctor wanted to keep her overnight for observation. NO coronavirus… just pregnancy problems.

Plus when you watch the news they say there are not enough hospital beds for the sick. That story doesn’t match up! Both of my daughters say no police or military patrolling the streets. People are wearing a mask if they have them and stay at least a meter distance, etc. My daughters don’t have any masks because they were sold out. However, they wear a scarf around their face. It’s considered bad manners now to go out in public without covering “brutta figura”.

The small shops in the neighborhoods are OPEN and no hoarding! They’ve been grocery shopping, drug stores, etc. However, big supermarkets and big box stores are either closed or partially closed. Thank God for the small shops not being pushed out of business by the big box stores! To enter the shops they need to stand in a single file one meter apart and only two or three can enter at a time. So it takes longer to shop… But everyone is laughing joking, and the small shop owners are family. Kinda like the way it was in the '50s and 60’s here in the US….

This is not to say… the virus issue is all blown out of proportion. There are real concerns and people are sick and have died. But the Italians, are having fun with it… well. their grandparents and great grandparents survived World War Two… They will survive this… and so will we!