Now, this is just my hunch
If I only I could be as blasé as Donald Trump when it comes to the Coronavirus.
If only I could call into question the statistics of the WHO and state that this is a mild flu that most people won’t even call their doctor about! Unfortunately, that is hard to do here in Milan, where life seems to have come to a screeching halt. Work projects have been put on hold, flights have been cancelled, hotel reservations are drastically down. Friends are reporting that companies are reducing to a 4-day work week to save money, my cousin who manages a hotel in the south tells me he has not had a single booking in 2 weeks. At lunch today, the waitress informed my friend and I that we had to sit at a meter distance from the other table. When I sat down next to a person on the subway this morning, I got dirty looks from the whole car and uncomfortable scooting away from my neighbour. Schools will possibly be closed until May. But this flu is very mild, Donald. Yes, it is and we over here in Italy are just bat shit crazy. That expression just got a whole new meaning.
A lot of my fellow Italians have been outraged about a CNN segment yesterday which showed a map of the world with Italy covered in red and arrows pointing from Italy in all directions, as though Italy was the source of all Coronavirus contagion. It seems that the media cannot get their head around a very simple statistical bias. Italians are testing heavily for Coronavirus, and other nations are simply not. The test isn’t even widely available in the US. Here, with socialised medicine, the test is available to everyone. There is no discussion about insurance co-pay. Why is the test important? Not only to ascertain if people have the virus, but also to map the contagion. I am not a scientist, nor a doctor (and now, this is just my hunch here, Donald) but it seems that if a country is worried about a disease spreading, then the responsible thing to do is to track the contagion. Italy is being responsible and transparent, but the rest of the world is acting like we are a plague infested nation, cancelling flights and holidays. Even at roughly 4000 cases, that is still only a teensy fraction of a population of 60 million people. NOTICE TO THE WORLD: The vast majority of Italians are perfectly healthy. Come visit and see for yourself. You may have to take a sailboat. Chances are there are far more undetected cases in countries like the USA than here. Just wait and see. I think we are all infected with Covid19.
What is not a hunch, but a very real fact is that this situation is difficult. As a freelancer I have found that my work has come to a complete halt. I don’t know when I will work again. I can’t go to the gym or my beloved yoga studio; my kids don’t go to school. People don’t touch or hug. How long will this last? We don’t know. But what can we do? Not much. Plan for the economic fallout. Hope business leaders focus on the long term and don’t panic. Refrain from going to the supermarket to stock up on loo roll. And most importantly: Relax. This situation is completely beyond our control. The sooner we accept it, the better it is.