Milan, Italy – Italy discovered its first COVID-19 infections a year ago. The outbreak caused the first national closure outside of China and has caused more than 95,000 lives nationwide. But according to CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay, there is now a very different story.
Life has slowly returned to normal and Italians filled the streets over the weekend, even in the north of the country, which was the epicenter. coronavirus epidemic.
Beatriu has just turned one and what year ago. Two weeks after she was born, her mother noticed a fever.
“Before it was when my kids coughed, we weren’t immediately scared,” mother Marta Zaninoni told CBS News. “But now in our family, the cough is no longer just a cough. It’s really stressful.”
Beatrice had COVID-19, the first known case in Europe in a newborn.
“They immediately put her in an incubator,” Zaninoni said. “I couldn’t even say goodbye.”
As her small body battled the disease in isolation, Beatrice became a symbol of hope for the harsh region of her family, Bergamo.
Many followed her progress to the hospital and the whole country would soon join Beatrice in isolation. Infections spread and plunged towns, cities and then all of Italy into what for an open society was unthinkable: closure.
The number of deaths increased and, as the disease forced the military to become mortals and barns in makeshift morgues, it stole not only the lives of the people, but their dignity.
The iconic streets of the city of Italy had no people. Pope Francis even offered an unprecedented solitary Easter service, practically. In small towns like Nembro, which once had the highest mortality rate in the country, Catholic Mass was celebrated before empty benches for most of 2020.
But today, from Milan to Rome, life is back. On Sunday, the church of Nembro was full.
“Last year we had 188 funerals,” Nembro priest Don Matteo Cella told Livesay. “This year, people are planning weddings.”
Ancient traditions bounce back in Italy, but with some differences. A year ago, something as simple as drinking a cappuccino in the open air had become unthinkable.
Life hardly returns to normal; the law still requires you to wear a mask at all times in public, even outside, except when eating or drinking.
This is a slow, non-victim-free recovery, something Beatrice’s mother knows first-hand as a survivor of COVID. The virus killed her uncle and grandfather while Beatrice was still in the hospital.
“They never got to know Beatrice,” Zaninoni lamented, adding that the illness brought the rest of the family closer than ever.
“Finally, after 40 days, Beatrice was released from COVID on Easter day,” the mother recalled. “It was a real resurrection for us. Despite her death in Italy, Beatrice gave us life.”
A year later, Italians are eagerly awaiting vaccine doses.
Deployment in the European Union has been slower than in the US. Many eighty-year-old Italians still don’t know when they will get their first shot, a particular concern in a country with one of the world’s oldest populations.