This was published 4 years ago
Coronavirus in Italy: Trapped in limbo as a tourist in Rome
A tourrist wearing a protective face mask has a photograph taken at Trevi Fountain.Credit: Bloomberg
Life goes on here in Rome. The eternal city seems convinced of its immortality. The roads are as chaotic as ever. Public transport is packed; the trains chug, the buses rattle. No one wears face masks. No one cleans their hands obsessively. No one avoids bars or pasticcerias or restaurants.
Right now it seems as if Romans are collectively pinching their fingertips and thumbs together and shaking their hands at covid-19.
Coronavirus? What coronavirus? If you didn't check the news you'd forget there was even a problem here. Except, I do check the news. I check the news every day, every hour, sometimes every few minutes. I check for the latest updates. I check to see the dangers. Now 100 Italians have contracted coronavirus. Now it's 300. Now it's 800. Now it's 2000.
A pedestrian wearing a protective face masks walks past the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020. Italy appears never far from a recession, and the spread of the coronavirus may just tip it back into the danger zone. Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/BloombergCredit: ALESSIA PIERDOMENICO
I don't know what the figure will be by the time you read this. I'm writing 36 hours or so before publication, but even in that time things could have changed dramatically. Italy could have gone into full-scale crisis. Or, like the buses on Via Marmorata near my apartment, it could have just kept on rattling on.
I had no idea I would end up in the middle of a pandemic. My partner and I booked our five-week trip to Rome back in November. We flew over here from Spain three weeks ago, when coronavirus was still a thing happening "over there" – when it was a Chinese problem, an Asian problem, one we would have to consider on our eventual journey home to Australia via Singapore.
But then about 10 days ago, things kicked off a little closer to home. My brother messaged me from London: "Scary what's going on in northern Italy atm." Is it? I checked the news. Coronavirus cases up into the hundreds. Small villages sealed off.
What do we do? Do we stay or do we go? Do we flee or do we stick it out? Do we change plans or not?
Before we knew it, Italy was the epicentre of the virus in Europe. We were in the middle of the storm, despite being in Rome, where still, miraculously, barely any cases have been discovered.
So now we find ourselves in limbo. We find ourselves in the same limbo that so many travellers must find themselves in right now. What do we do? Do we stay or do we go? Do we flee or do we stick it out? Do we change plans or not?
This, surely, is the main effect coronavirus is having on Australia's travelling community at the moment. Paralysis. Indecision. What is the right thing to do here? What is your next move? It's so hard to gauge.
As of this moment, as I write this story, we have decided to stay in Rome for the final two weeks of our holiday. This is a decision we re-evaluate daily; sometimes hourly. It might have changed by the time you read this, as the number of cases explodes, as Rome inevitably becomes affected.
It's so hard to stay rational in situations like this, to be clear-headed about the dangers and the rewards. The obvious temptation is to run from danger, is to just get on the first plane back to Australia and feel safe at home, even if we may not be.
But we've decided to stay, because we see the risks as being relatively low, despite all of the media coverage and the panic. Yes, more than 2000 people in Italy have contracted covid-19. But that's still only a very small fraction of the population, and right now they're a long way away, up in the north of the country. We'd be closer to the main problem areas if we lived in Switzerland.
My partner and I are also (relatively) young and healthy, which puts us in a lower risk category for coronavirus than some. Our son is 18 months old, which puts him in even less danger. We take precautions now, too: we wash our hands obsessively; we avoid touching our faces; we avoid touching others.
So for now, we stay in Italy. This shouldn't, however, be taken as advice to anyone else to do the same. We've assessed the risks and made up our minds, but there's no guarantee of safety. I would love to sit here and encourage everyone to come to Italy and help support a tourism industry that is suddenly struggling, but that advice isn't right for all travellers. You have to do your own research; make up your own mind.
Right now, we're doing as the Romans do, which seems to be to just carry on as normal. We drink our cappuccino and eat our "cornetto" at the local pasticceria every morning. We shop in the market. We take our kid to the park. We catch public transport. We get back to our flat and we wash our hands like crazy and thoroughly disinfect our junior traveller.
We try to have fun and see the sights and not worry that every scratchy throat or every little cough is a sign that we've been infected.
Life goes on in Rome, as it does for so many of its visitors. We just have to live it.
Has the coronavirus outbreak affected your travel plans? Have you cancelled a trip? Are you still going somewhere? Which factors have influenced your decision?
Email: b.groundwater@traveller.com.au
Instagram: instagram.com/bengroundwater
See also: Here are all the airlines that have suspended routes due to coronavirus
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