Italy was hit hard by the coronavirus. Here’s how they are doing now.

By Mia Splendore, Staff Writer/Artist

COVID-19 has affected us in a lot of ways, and it seems to be on everyone’s mind all the time. The United States is barely keeping up in the best places and facing an unprecedented amount of struggle in the worst. Even though it seems like we are fighting to keep our head above water here in the States, it’s important to remember that other countries are fighting the same fight. 

Italy is one of the most affected countries, facing a staggering number of cases and deaths. Italy lost more people to this virus than China by over 15,000, despite having only 60 million people compared to China’s 1.3 billion. Italy’s death toll is only second to the U.S., which has now reached over 40,000 deaths. Italy was hit far before the U.S. started shutting down, and we watched their struggle from overseas. 

During the peak, Italians were isolating and staying far from each other whenever they did go outside. Hospitals were overwhelmed, and doctors had to make a lot of difficult decisions about who they were going to give critical care. Italy also has a lot of older people in its population, and the elderly are hit harder by this virus than any other age group, other than the very young. There was a lot of attention on Italy during the worst of the pandemic, but how are they doing now? 

Well, their rate of deaths has begun to decrease, so, fortunately, they seem to be out of the worst of it. The rate of infections has also slowed down. Now the question appears to be when and how they are going to reopen. They are still fighting this pandemic right now, but since the highest point in the wave seems to have passed, many are asking when life is going to get back to normal. 

And the truth is, nobody knows. 

Whether it’ll be safe or not is highly debatable, and what precautions are going to be put in place are up in the air. However, it’s going to be important to look to Italy in the coming weeks and months so that we in the U.S. can get a sense of what to do. We didn’t learn from them when we watched them battle the worst that COVID-19 has to offer, and we paid for it. We shouldn’t make that mistake again.