Coronavirus Hairspray, Anyone?

Last night while falling asleep, I started dreaming that I couldn’t breathe and would wake up again with a start. Upon discovering that my breathing was fine, I would fall asleep again, and then again, the same thing would happen.  To be frank, this is the first night for a long time I have not slept well, so these anxious fits came as a surprise. Perhaps it was the rumor that was swirling around yesterday that current restrictions might be extended until the 31st of July (subsequently denied by Prime Minister Conte) that sent me back to a place of stress.  It’s certainly true that Coronavirus is turning me into Molière’s “Malade Imaginaire”, I continuously measure my temperature. Who else is with me?

For the third day in a row we had a declining trend in infections, and the experts are saying we may be flattening the curve. There are also those who say that the numbers reported by the Civil Protection agency are bogus. A virologist called Andrea Crisanti claims that the actual cases are more likely to be 450,000. He is basing this conclusion on the data collected in the town of Vo’ Euganeo (in the Veneto region), where the whole population was tested, and the data coming from China, which concludes that up to 40% of the infected people were asymptomatic. I honestly don’t know what to think, or whom to believe. If I were in the U.S, I would certainly not trust Donald Trump’s affirmation that the country would be raring to go by Easter. In contrast to Trump’s brazen attitude, Putin seems to be taking the virus quite seriously, judging by the impressive yellow hazmat suit he donned for his visit at a hospital yesterday.

 In other domestic news, here’s an item that supermarkets can’t keep in stock (drumroll): yeast. All of Italy is baking. And for your daily dose of Coronavirus humor, there is a fabulous montage of some local small-town mayors berating their citizens for not staying at home. A recurring problem: ladies who want to get their hair done at home by their hairdressers. I confess this idea had crossed my mind at some point, weeks ago, when I was still a lackadaisical in my social distancing (shouldn’t it be called physical distancing?) In one video, the mayor of Lucera (a town in Puglia) shouts “Don’t you understand that instead of hairspray, the hairdresser is coating your hair in Coronavirus?” Now that’s kind of gross. ( For the videos see here)