– Aurelio Porfiri
I think I know what is the safest place to stay in a time when Italy, my country, is facing a surge in the coronavirus epidemic: in a restaurant. Yes, this is my experience and I want to tell you why. Yesterday, I visited the usual restaurants on a weekend, where usually you could hardly find a place to eat because they are full of people, especially tourists. They knew me and my family, because we always go to these restaurants in our neighborhood. But yesterday to my surprise it was empty! There were only myself and the waiters. And I live in that part of Rome which at the moment is not that affected by infections compared to other places in Italy.
On talking to the waiters they told me that coronavirus is not only threatening people’s lives, in some cases, but also destroying economies. Several hotels are closing because there are no more tourists, restaurants and the entire hospitality industry has been affected in an unprecedented way. Please, remember: we are in Italy, one of the most famous places for tourism, our country thrives on it. Who will compensate the thousands of families with no more salaries, with people severely ill or people who lost a loved one? I am sure this question is at the back of everyone’s minds.
Now, let me ask you one thing: what will you think if I tell you today that 5 people die in Italy every 4 hours? And then I tell you that is not just today, but every day, every month of the year? You will be very surprised, and you will probably think that the coronavirus here is very severe. But it is not the coronavirus I am talking about, I am talking of the common flu. Every year around 8000 people die from the common flu. But we are used to the flu. We don’t give it the attention we give to the covid-19 epidemic. Now, of course we have to pay attention to it, but we need not only ask the virologists what to do, but also social psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists. Because panic is not something strictly related with the illness but with something irrational that captures the minds of people and makes them act in a way that may become out of control.
Let me tell you another story. A few days ago I was in a doctor’s studio. A certain old lady coughed, it was not in my direction, and she covered her mouth properly. The feeling of uncertainty that simple act had created in me and the doctor himself is certainly not something that we may define as “normal.” The doctor asked her many questions to understand if that coughing was “innocent” or….
So, there should be people who can help us understand what situation we are really in, and how to face it in a more rational manner. And as for Catholics, Christians and religious people, we should ask our religious leaders. But here the answers are somehow controversial. A few days back there was some controversy in the news about something that the retired Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angelo Scola, had said about it being a punishment from God. He has said that God does not punish because He is good, so we cannot think that the coronavirus was sent by Him. Now, I think that the Archbishop was probably misunderstood by the journalist who asked him questions.
In Isaiah 42:9 it is said: “Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.” In Psalm 139:4 it is said: “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” If God is God, he is all knowing and He is omnipotent. It means that He knows everything and He can do everything. So, in theory, He can stop these things from happening. But sometimes He doesn’t. And we know that we can learn lessons from these things that are happening. Lessons about our fragility, about the unpredictability of life, about the passing of things. But we also need to consider that this illness is now affecting the Vatican itself. At the time of writing of this article one case was confirmed in the Vatican, but I am not sure what will be the count when this article is being read. A few days ago there were also some concerns about the Pope himself, who is showing symptoms of a flu these days. Someone from Hong Kong sent me the image of a “news article” claiming that the Vatican had confirmed that Pope Francis and two of his aides were declared positive for coronavirus. This person asked my opinion and I told her that this was fake news. Then the Pope, according to what the Vatican told us was tested for coronavirus but he was not positive, thanks be to God.
In any case, the Church here has to face an unpredictable situation. In the most affected areas they have no public Masses. In other areas, including Rome, Masses are celebrated but certain rules are to be followed: people should stay at a secure distance of one meter, there should be no sign of peace (in Italy it is not like Macau or Hong Kong, where people simply bow, here people shake hands) and communion should be administered in the hands of the faithful. Also, the Vatican itself is adapting to the situation by trying to deter people from gathering together at one place, so as to avoid the possible spread of the virus. So, the Pope recorded the Angelus and the same will be done for the general audience.
Yes, we are now talking of a real emergency. At the moment of my writing, more than 5000 are infected, more than 200 deaths, airlines shut down, schools closed, as are cinemas and theatres. I was mentioning to someone, the rare times that I go out of my apartment, that it is the first time in my life that I was experiencing something like this. I was already connected with China and Hong Kong at the time of the SARS, but during that period I was not there and SARS did not come here to Italy. This is something really different, something that is changing the lives of millions of people around the world.
So, we need to return to the question that we had asked at the beginning. When all this comes to an end, and indeed there will come a time when all this has to end, who will pay the price for the damage that has been done? Because someone is responsible for the spread of this virus, the nations of the world should take cognizance of whoever is responsible or accountable for the unprecedented damage that was done to the world as a whole. If no one is responsible, they should take steps to stop this from happening again. Of course viruses cannot be controlled, they are all around us, they surround us. But in a time of history when humanity was able to achieve unprecedented advancements in science, medicine and technology, we should be able to diminish the impact of such occurrences.
I was looking at some very interesting videos on YouTube about those of the survivors from the 1918’s “Spanish” flu who recollected their experiences. These videos were recorded around a decade ago, and of course all these people were very old, close to 100 years old. But they can still vividly remember those times, when the flu killed millions of people around the world. Of course that was a very different world, medicine was not very advanced as what it is now, the knowledge of viruses was not what it is now. But I am also quite sure that we will also have similar memories of the coronavirus epidemic. Of course the impact today will be very different from what was in 1918 (let us remember that the vast majority of people that contract the virus recover, sometimes even without having symptoms), but that feeling of instability, fear, anxiety, will always stay with us. We are experiencing how life can be frail. And I am sure there will be many speculations (there are already) about the origin of this virus; when there will be a more thorough understanding of what has happened and how come this virus was able to cause so big a damage and anxiety, maybe we will be in the position to prevent something like this happening again in the future.
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