Copa Corona
For a few days now an image has been circulating in newspapers and on social media of a beach with Plexiglas cabins encapsulating every sun bed. A company in Modena came up with these structures as a possible solution to beach-going in Corona-times. The computer-generated image has been pumped out to every news outlet and horror-struck Italians have been forwarding it frantically to their friends and family. This is the name of the game now. Speculation. Scenario planning. Hypothesising. And forwarding, forwarding, forwarding.
I scour the newspapers for actual facts, but they are few and far in between. The only thing that seems fact based (with all the biases I’ve already discussed) is the nightly bulletin with the numbers of infections and deaths. I had stopped obsessing over it, but recently I have found myself comforted by the colourful table that is published daily around 6 p.m. At least it’s not someone’s opinion. We are at 1.6% increase in infections, the data looks encouraging.
Journalists seem to have become futurists. But the future is not in a few years, it’s on May 4th when we enter the so-called “Phase 2” and ends when we have a vaccine. Once we have a vaccine we will go back to the past. In addition to the frightful beach image, I keep seeing pictures of scary people clad in protective gear wielding digital thermometers like a Kalashnikov. I don’t like the look of the future. I might just stay locked down. Maybe that’s the point of all this propaganda? Make life on the “outside” look so unappetising that most of us will just stay put? There is also increasing chatter about an app for contact tracing. The app will be voluntary of course, because the state cannot force people to use it, this would impinge on people’s privacy. Oddly I keep receiving the link to the app from friends who want me to use it. More Groupthink.
The region of Lombardy has announced it will begin antibody testing on April 21st. The goal is to do 20,000 tests a day, focusing first on frontline (medical/emergency) workers, but the first phase of the program does not include Milan. Beppe Sala, our mayor is so frustrated by that that he is launching his own antibody testing campaign. He will start with testing 4000 people who work for the public transport authority.
On a side note, I need to vent about the new products that are cropping up on my social media feed or in display ads on newspaper pages. What about that button pusher that looks a little bit like a vibrator? It comes in candy pastel shades and allows you to avoid pushing lift buttons or ring doorbells. Or have you seen those UV light phone sanitising machines? Admit you have thought about getting one! Or, for the particular germ obsessed, there are those crazy plastic visors you can affix to a hat. For a sampling see here. And of course everyone is making masks. Today, a brand that makes yoga pants (that I shan’t name, because I liked this brand once, but may have changed my mind) sent me an email advertising their face-masks. I’ve always wanted a mask to match my yoga outfit. Please wake me from this trippy dream.