W22&23 of Y6

This is one of the rare occasions that Amy asked me to contribute to the blog, so I obliged.

Not a lot of pictures from the past few weeks I guess.  And this entry requires some written description so I was drafted!  Not all that exciting I know... but if you the reader are locked down like we are then you'll have plenty of time to read this post! 

So today is the 21st of March, 2020.  We are heading into our fourth week of lock down here in Italy due to the outbreak of the Corona virus or COVID-19.  It turns out that Northern Italy, where we live, is the most affected place in the entire world.  It started in a place called Wuhan, China.  As of today most places in China are under better control with not as many new cases and deaths falling to almost zero.  Alternatively, Italy had 627 deaths just yesterday and the total number of cases is now exceeding 50,000.  Today we could hear speakers outside being driven around on trucks which blared that we should stay inside our houses and not leave for any reason.  We are under severe movement restrictions not only by order of the Italian government but also by order of the Senior Ranking Officer of the Army whose jurisdiction we fall under.  We cannot go 200 meters beyond our house at any time unless we're going to the pharmacy or grocery store or work.  Amy is still going to work every day.  Her job is deemed essential by those in charge on post.  My agency (GSA) has mandated that all of their employees work from home full time.  We actually are not allowed to go into the office or we will be disciplined.  All stores are closed.  All restaurants are closed.  All gyms, all schools, all churches... everything is closed.  Something like this has never happened in recorded history.  This is the first time... and we're living through it.  So far the biggest sacrifice is that we're bound to stay at home.  We have plenty of food and entertainment and the kids stay busy with schooling online, but it does kind of get to you after a while of being home all the time and the days kind of just blend into one another.  You can't tell weekends from week days, and there is no looking forward.  We had a trip planned for spring break to go to Ireland and that was obviously cancelled.  All international flights all over the world have been cancelled.  We were fortunate to go on our trip over Christmas break which was a two week cruise to Asia.  We returned on January 6 and at that time the virus was already spreading through China.  We returned from that trip just in time.  If we had left just a few weeks later we may have been stranded on the cruise with no where to go.  That has happened to thousands of people all over the world.  So we were fortunate to make it back to Italy.  Even at the end of February we were able to take a vacation to southern Germany for a ski trip.  When we returned from that trip around Feb 25th we started to hear more and more on the news about the spread of the virus.  At first it was limited to just China and we thought it would kind of stay that way, but as the news continued to get worse we noticed that there were more and more cases here in Northern Italy.  Restrictions started happening in selected cities in Italy around March 2... and then a few days later the entire country went into lock down.  A few days after that everything closed and schools closed.  I had a business trip to Germany planned for March 9 to 13 and that was cancelled.  That week the borders closed so if I had gone I may not have been able to make it back.  Many of the European countries have closed their borders in an effort to stem the spread of the virus in their countries.  As of today Spain and France have a considerable number of cases.  In the US it seems from the news that many people don't believe it's real.  It doesn't seem that they're getting consistent guidance from the President.  Each state is instituting varying levels of restrictions but I'm not sure most are taking it serious.  The one thing they ARE doing is hoarding toilet paper.  Not sure that that even makes sense, but it's going on.  My parents sent pictures last night from their grocery store and it seems that most of the shelves are empty.  Not just the tp aisle.  I can see that many people are still going out and gathering and such in the US and I wonder how long that will last.  The thing that is scary about the virus is that you don't see any symptoms for the first week or so and so you're carrying it unknowingly and spreading it.  By the time you realize you have it, sometimes it's too late.  You've already spread it to who knows how many people.  So that's why the logic of social distancing makes sense.  The idea is just to have everyone stay in their house so as not to be around other people spreading the virus unwittingly.  The only way to control it is to keep everyone separated and isolated.  The health care system here in Italy is almost at its breaking point.  I know that in Milan they are having to enlist the help of the Army to move dead bodies to crematories and burial grounds.  The morgues are overwhelmed with all of the dead and can't keep up.  I wonder how large cities are going to cope when and if they get hit as hard as Northern Italy has been hit.  I hope and pray that they somehow avoid all of this and it's not so bad there.  They keep making comparisons to the Spanish flu which hit around 1918 about 100 years ago.  And during that pandemic they noticed that the number of cases decreased when the weather got warmer.  Experts are saying that the virus doesn't do well in the sunlight and warmer weather so everyone is hoping that when the weather warms up and the sun is out more that the growth and spread of the virus will decrease.  In any case, we're here and we're alive and we're not sick... or at least not sick with the virus from what we can tell.  We haven't been tested and Connor and I have had a cough, but no fever so that's a relief.  I'm kind of going a little bit stir crazy here in the house all the time and really envy Amy's ability to leave to go to work every day.  She can go and talk to new people and interact with people.  I took being able to do that for granted before.  I took being able to just walk down the street to visit my local pizzaria for granted.  I can't do any of that any more.  We're all hoping that this whole thing winds down soon.  People keep saying maybe mid to late May that things will be better.  We're all hoping and praying that that is the case.