Life under Corona Virus Lockdown

I have been getting a lot of questions about what it is like to be in Italy right now because of the Corona Virus situation. As it spreads around the world, the questions have become more frequent. I am assuming this is because looking at our situation provides a glimpse into a possible future, like how the Hubble Telescope helps us understand the past. Daniel, my friend in Sao Paolo, also under lockdown, but for less time, calls me his "laboratory guinea pig" who shows him what he can look forward to in the next few weeks. He's not the only one with this idea.

Here in Trieste, we are now in almost complete lockdown. This means that we are not allowed to leave our houses or apartments, that is our default position. There are some exceptions to this rule:

1) Supermarket
2) Pharmacy
3) Newstand
4) Dog walking
5) Work, if absolutely necessary

In all cases, you must have a printed document with you which is downloadable online on the government website. As of this writing, this is the latest document. If you are walking your dog, you are expected to be very close to home, as in you could point to it if you were stopped by the police.

Which comes to my next point, you can be stopped and questioned by the police. They are giving out very large fines to people who are found not following the rules, which have been expanded just two days ago to prohibit outdoor sports and, get this, walking alone.

The question arises, then, just how can the virus spread if you are walking alone or out running on your own? The simple answer is that it's not about the activities in themselves, it's about how people interpret the regulations in creative ways so they can get out of the house. See, nobody likes being required to stay home. In English we say "You give an inch they take a mile." Supermarkets are now closed on Sundays because people were organizing meetings with friends there, even when they weren't shopping. For some reason, this was happening mostly on Sundays.

For more on why it's so hard to keep people on lockdown, this Ted talk gives us some interesting insights.  I also believe that another reason people try to get away with not following the rules has to do with cognitive bias. For example, the Optimism Bias  states that people are more likely to assume that bad things will happen to other people and therefore underestimate their own risks. We all like to think that we will be the exception to the rule. I certainly do not intend on getting Corona Virus, but that doesn't stop me from staying home and washing my hands and taking precautions against danger, however.

Another cognitive bias we are seeing in the U.S. news, for example, is the Confirmation Bias, which states that we tend to heed information that confirms what we already believe. If you buy into a source of information that has been telling you that the Corona Virus is fake and that it will get cleaned up in a few days, it will be very difficult for you to listen to other sources, even if they are credible and fact-based. This is why so many move ahead with their same routines even if they are being instructed to do differently.

If I can say something about my experience: it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

In Italy, the fact that so many of us have had to switch to working from home on short notice has brought out the best in people. It has forced us to acknowledge that there are other ways of doing things and that the "old way" is not always the best way. Those of us who teach have found that our students are more engaged, for example. Perhaps this is because they can sleep a little longer in the morning and we are using "their" tools to reach them. Other friends in jobs who never expected to be able to work from home are finding that performance indicators are off the charts for the same reasons. There is something about being able to work from home in your own way that is helping people work better. I think the idea of "putting your hours in" has been replaced with "getting the job done" in however much time it takes you. For some of us this means working late at night or early in the morning, and on weekends, but you don't hear people complaining about it. At least I haven't.

That being said, I have colleagues who are not adapting as well to this change. They seem to hope that things will go back to "normal" (the way it used to be) in April when this lockdown situation is supposed to expire, even though it is more likely that the situation will continue into summer. They will eventually come around, I suspect, but everyone has to take their time to process what is happening. It is not easy as none of us has ever experienced anything like this.

Other positive things about being on lockdown.

1) My house is clean. I don't know when the bug hit (it was not immediate), but I am a tornado of cleanliness and I am totally digging it!

2) More time with my new puppy. When we were getting her we were worried we wouldn't be able to handle the rigorous meal and walking schedule, but that all changed the day before we brought her home. I have the happiest puppy on earth!

3) More time with my daughter. We work together at the kitchen table. She has about 5 hours of homework to complete per day. She is in fourth grade and has to meet with her class and her teachers on Zoom for 45-minute sessions about three times a week. She would be happy to do this forever. Keeping track of her work and creating a schedule took a couple of weeks. On weekdays she has to get up at 7:30 and get dressed. At first it is hard to communicate to kids that it is a school day even if you are at home. There is no TV allowed during the week. TV and Netflix (and youtube) are reserved for the weekend. She is allowed two group chat sessions on Whatsapp with her girlfriends from her class (five of them total) on mom's phone per day: one after lunch and one in the evening for about 10-20 minutes each time. The moms agreed to keep it limited to those two sessions and the girls were happy that no chatting would go on without them. No one wants to exclude or be excluded.

4) I love my house and I am happy here. I organize my time so I can do everything I need to do and I don't waste time waiting for busses anymore (I don't have a car). This lack of freedom makes me feel more free.

5) We are saving a ton of money. I am making less money (I am freelance, so I don't have a regular salary coming in) but we are not eating out (which we used to do at least once a week) or doing any other kind of shopping. Since we are home more, when it's cold I make a fire in my wood-burning stove and that heats my house. I haven't used gas to heat the house in weeks.  I also stopped drinking the week before we went on lockdown, so that has saved us some cash as well. We cook more. I make bread sometimes. It's all good.

6) It's much easier to stay on my diet. We are not going out or having dinner at friends' houses so it's easier to stay on the straight and narrow.

There are lots of other reasons to be thankful about this situation as well. I will try to update as things come up if I think they can benefit someone else.

In the meantime, stay safe and wash those hands!