Broadcaster Kate Langbroek has opened up on life in lockdown with her family in Italy
Broadcaster Kate Langbroek has been in lockdown with her family in Italy for the past month. Here’s what she says Australians should expect.
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Kate Langbroek has revealed what lockdown life is like in Italy, saying her family has gone weeks without leaving their apartment.
While Australia is still in stage 2 of shutdown, broadcaster Langbroek said people in the coronavirus hotspot were only stepping out to get food if they had a police form.
Langbroek, husband Peter Lewis, and their four children, moved to Bologna in January last year.
“We’re in our third week of lockdown and we’re in our fifth week of home school,’’ Langbroek told FOX FM’s Fifi, Fev and Byron on Friday.
“Things have happened gradually, first the schools were closed, then restaurants and bars were open til six o’clock at night and then they had to close.
“Every couple of days it feels like something else happens, something else closes, there’s something else you’re not allowed to do.
“We’re literally going days and days now without leaving the apartment.
“We’re still allowed out to go and buy food but you’ve got to have a police form that you fill out that you have to have with you, and of course the printer’s not open.”
Langbroek, who was part of successful radio team Hughesy and Kate with Dave Hughes, extended her stay in Italy.
She said the economic repercussions had not yet been felt across the region.
“I imagine that it is (a concern). I think there’s probably mitigating circumstances to it that means people aren’t as adversely affected by it,’’ she said.
“One is the government pretty well from the start, a friend of ours has got a restaurant, they said they were going to pay 80 per cent of people’s wages who couldn’t work during this time.
“That was very early on, we can’t really read too much Italian news so we’re a bit limited in that regard.
“But certainly there doesn’t seem to be the same economic despair which I’m sure will come. “The sense is more that they need to ride this out first, which is fair enough when people are dying, that’s you’re immediate priority. Also you know the Italians, hey we’ll sort that shit out later. Maybe it’s a bit of that as well.
“Doctors and nurses are on the frontline, god knows everyone else is suffering. The only thing you can do is stay at home and hope to kill the beast.”