Running always helps to clear the mind. But when you’re in the midst of a pandemic, and confined to running on your roof, your mind has a way of keeping up with you.
There’s been a lot to think about these past few days.
Last Saturday, I met up with a friend in Testaccio Market, watched Wolves grind out a tedious 0-0 draw at home to Brighton, and went for dinner at my favourite restaurant, Il Bucatino. Now Testaccio Market is abandoned, the Premier League is suspended indefinitely, and Il Bucatino has been shuttered up for the foreseeable future.
Life has been put on hold for Italy’s 60 million residents. (Or at least for as many as possible without causing the economy to grind to a standstill). And for a culture accustomed to morning coffee at the bar, aperitivo in the square, and work meetings so up close and personal you can see the whites of your colleagues’ eyes, being constrained to four walls is proving something of a shock.
Now we venture out only virtually, via the vast reaches of the Internet. With lots of time on our hands, those of us who immigrated here for La Dolce Vita are keeping track of what’s going on back home – in my case in Britain.
And what I’m seeing is terrifying.
Italy is on complete lockdown. Both the US and other EU states seem to be following suit. And the official advice coming from the British Government continues to be, “Keep washing your hands, if possible to the length of ‘Happy Birthday’.”
Okay, that’s a little facetious.
The UK has formulated a strategy based on the underlying principle of acceptance. Community spread is already well underway after people were allowed to arrive unchecked from Northern Italy and disperse among their communities.
When I last checked, the UK had 1,140 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Official government figures estimate the real number is between 5-10,000.
Staring down the barrel of the imminent surge in cases, the Government’s advisors have opted for a strategy of herd immunity. What this means is that two-thirds of the population must contract the virus before we can reduce its rates of transmission and hope to stave it off in the future.
The approach has come under lots of criticism, not least from the WHO. But who am I to question the expert virologists ceding government advice?
Just as I was no constitutional expert during the halcyon days of Brexit, I don’t claim to be well versed in virology today, and as critical as I am of this current government, I do not believe they are embarked on a eugenically-driven mission to exterminate the old and vulnerable.
But I have a strong suspicion that what underlies the Government’s decision-making around the disease is less pathological than it is financial. And that it ultimately boils down to one simple question:
If the UK ground its economy to a halt, who would bail it out?
China took no chances when COVID-19 broke out in Wuhan.
The Government came down as hard as only a totalitarian regime can, enforcing a lockdown and mobilizing extreme force to contain the spread.
There are darker sides too to the Chinese regime’s response. But as the results seem to be showing, the end may justify the means.
Italy crippled its own economy to contain the worst outbreak in Europe. But with a seat at the top table of the globe’s most powerful economic club, it can at least hope that other members may ultimately share the burden.
There are signs this might have been wishful thinking.
The EU’s response to Italy’s plight has been woeful so far. Doctors in Northern Italy describe warlike conditions resulting from the deluge of serious cases. When they begged for supplies, every single member state turned its back. Locking the infected at home for the good of the village.
When help did arrive on Thursday – in the form of 50 tonnes of supplies and an expert medical team – it came not from Brussels, but from Beijing.
Only time will tell whether the EU comes through or whether it leaves Italy to languish as the sick man of Europe. Should it opt for the latter, this would surely spell the end of the European Project.
Personally, I don’t believe that the EU would be so foolish. But this will be revealed in time. What’s important in the coming days, weeks, and months is hope.
That someone has our back. That someone will eventually step in.
Hope is a luxury from which isolated Britain can take no comfort.
The UK can ill afford to cripple its economy the way Italy has, or Spain is about to do. I struggle to see a beleaguered America coming to Britain’s aid, or a helping hand from commonwealth countries struggling to contain their own tide of Coronavirus cases.
We have spent the last few years ingloriously cutting ties with our neighbours in pursuit of independence as a self-sufficient nation. And while historical moments like this temporarily supersede the bickering of geopolitics, when the dust settles it will be back to the budgets.
Britain must keep calm and carry on through this crisis, or risk emerging so economically wounded that it truly will be marooned from the world stage.
This economy-first approach creates all kinds of problems of its own. Though every country is experiencing this pandemic at a different pace, the lack of international collaboration in tackling the virus can only sow the seeds for later difficulties.
For example, it’s all well and good for the British to develop herd immunity. But in today’s globalised world, what happens when Brits come into contact with people like us, who were kept indoors?
History furnishes many examples of immunised settlers wreaking havoc on foreign soil. It is the effect of Europeans introducing their diseases to Native American populations that explains the demographic makeup of the US today. Again, I am no virologist, just a historian currently working in tourism. But as this sector makes up 14% of Italy’s GDP, we’ll soon be faced with a question:
“Can we open up our borders to Britain anytime soon?”
One upshot of existential crises like these is their capacity to unite. Up against a threat that impacts all of us and can’t be reasoned with, we must cooperate and work together to minimise the potential damage.
Such a sense of solidarity has never been stronger here in Italy. It may be that in the days and weeks to go, it took a virus that knows no borders to expose Britain’s isolationist dream as a fantasy.
