Coronavirus: Going stir-crazy in a desert of solitude in Italy

Across Italy post-Easter, there was a glimmer of hope in the corona­virus pandemic.

Australian celebrity chef Toni Brancatisano in Rome.

Across Italy post-Easter, there was a glimmer of hope in the corona­virus pandemic.

As befitting the needs of a ­depressed, economically struggling country, the Italian authorities decided that computer stores and bookstores would reopen this week to help nurture creativity and begin a slow step towards economic life.

Curiously, it announced children’s wear shops would also open.

Celebrity chef Toni Brancati­sano, originally from Melbourne and living in Rome conducting food tours and high-end catering, said the mood was still low in Rome despite the slight shift in lockdown rules that have been in place since early March.

Some had found the government’s decisions perplexing.

“Children’s wear shops? If it was for nappies and things, fine, but you can get those in the supermarkets,’’ Brancatisano said.

“One children’s wear owner was saying how she had to sanitise her shop, and because it was small she would have to offer appointments to people.

“I am not feeling very hopeful. I won’t get excited until I can get my morning coffee at the local bar, talk to my barista and listen to ­people’s conversations.’’

Like many in Rome, Brancatisano has no balcony, and she would previously use her roof terrace near the Vatican for a short “mental health” time to read a book in the sun. That was until signs went up that the rooftop was only for hanging laundry.

Brancatisano’s food tour business has collapsed and she predicts it will take at least 12 months for tourists to be confident enough to travel again. In the meantime, the Italian government has given entrepreneurs €600 ($1026) as a one-off lump sum.

She said she knew of other Australians living in Italy who were looking to access their Australian superannuation because money was so tight and the future employment situation so dire.

Australian writer Jo McKenna, in Rome’s Trastevere neighbourhood.

But as a chef, she is creating more recipes for her blog. “I kept busy over Easter and threw myself into the kitchen, but it’s now raining and the glorious sunny days of Easter are over. What else do I do? I can’t clean the house again,” she said.

One of Brancatisano’s friends, writer Jo McKenna, who has lived in central Rome for 13 years, said she too was wary of the future.

“There is still a coronavirus problem in Milan and the infection rate is still alarming and there are fears it will explode further south,’’ McKenna said.

“All the jobs are gone. The public are hoping for money from the EU to keep the economy alive through bond issues or the IMF or else the mafia will fill that ­vacuum.’’

Mafia expert and author Roberto Saviano said this week that the mob was offering interest-free loans — previously unheard of — and also food parcels, so it could call in favours when the corona­virus crisis abated.

“For what purpose? For favours,” Saviano said.

Italian Prime Minister Gui­seppe Conte this week rejected the EU’s €540bn loan plan as “a trap’’, warning that the failure of the EU to consider corona bonds, also known as Eurobonds, where richer EU countries would help sub­sidise the poorer ones, threatened the existence of the EU project.

Italians consider any straight-out EU loan offer as a sellout to Brussels’ control and want debt mutualisation instead.

“We will fight for Eurobonds,’’ Conte said. “The (current plan) is a totally inadequate and improper instrument for the emergency we are facing.”

Italy’s public debt is predicted to jump 33 percentage points to 167 per cent of GDP this year.

McKenna said Italians were starting to “go nutty’’ with the lockdown extended for a further three weeks.

She has found herself in the local piazza talking to her friend 2m ahead of her in a supermarket queue as the only chance “to have a gossip and opportunity to talk’’.

Most people on the streets wear masks.

“No one is convinced what the next step will be,’’ she said.

“We will get to May 3 and then what? Schools are shut until September, parents are going stir-crazy, and you hear the arguments in the apartment blocks.’’