In Italy, the number of confirmed dead from the coronavirus is expected to exceed 30,000. Aside from the pain, shock and horror of the past 10 weeks, it is clear there will be other lasting effects.
Italians across the country have not seen a single newscast that has not focused all of its reports on the pandemic, whether to give the latest figures of dead or newly infected, or to discuss the impact on the economy, or to address how the scientific community is working to find a way to fight the disease.
Psychological shift
Now that the country has started to gradually ease the lockdown, not everyone has been so eager to go back to their old lives.
Many have become used to staying in the comfort zone of their homes and have organised their domestic lives so that it co-exists well with their work from home.
Many say they quickly adapted to the silence outside their windows and to talking to their neighbours on their balconies.
Twenty-five percent of Italians are still fearful of contracting the virus and are anxious at the idea of getting on public transport, even if they are wearing masks and gloves, and in spite of being aware that only a limited number of people are allowed on at a time.
These feelings are expected to linger for many months. Psychologists say people that are more easily adaptable (like young people) will find it easier to return to their old lives but are also likely to take less precautions at a time when the coronavirus is far from having been defeated.
Adults who were able to continue with their jobs throughout this time will also find it easier as this aspect of their lives did not really change very much.
Many elderly people have not seen their children and grandchildren for months, and may not yet be able to see them for some time. The different conditions in which people have had to live their isolation will certainly have different psychological effects, namely if a person was on their own, if they tested positive, became sick, or lost a loved one.
Ghost towns
People who did not suffer any of these situations during their isolation will find it easier to return to the streets and resume their lives.
The lasting mark that will undoubtedly stay with Italians is having seen their cities, towns and villages like never before: completely devoid of life.
The pictures of the Colosseum in Rome with no tourists or no lines outside the Uffizi Museums in Florence and the Venice canals with no gondolas will stay in people’s minds here forever, as will the pictures of the army trucks taking away hundreds of dead bodies in the northern Italian town of Bergamo.
The image that will likely be the most impossible to delete from memory for Italians the one of Pope Francis praying on his own in an empty Saint Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.
