Milan, Italy – Italy discovered its first COVID-19 infections a year ago. The outbreak triggered the first nationwide lockdown outside of China and has claimed more than 95,000 lives nationwide. But as CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay reports, it’s a whole different story there now.
Life has slowly returned to normal, and Italians filled the streets this weekend – even in the north of the country, which was once the epicenter of his country. coronavirus epidemic.
Beatrice just turned a year old, and what a year it has been. Two weeks after she was born, her mother noticed a fever.
“We used to not panic right away when my kids coughed,” mom Marta Zaninoni told CBS News. “But now in our family, coughing 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,” said Zaninoni. “I couldn’t even say goodbye.”
As her tiny body battled the disease in isolation, Beatrice became a symbol of hope for her family’s hard-hit home region of Bergamo.
Many followed her progress in hospital, and the whole country would soon join Beatrice in isolation. Infections skyrocketed and plunged villages, towns and then all of Italy into what was – for a free society – unthinkable: lockdown.
The death toll soared, and when the disease forced military servicemen to turn into funeral directors and shed into makeshift morgues, it not only robbed people’s lives but also their dignity.
Italy’s iconic streets were devoid of people. Pope Francis even virtually held an unprecedented lonely Easter service. In small towns like Nembro, which once had the highest death rate in the country, Catholic Mass was held in front of empty pews for most of 2020.
But today, from Milan to Rome, life returns. On Sunday the church of Nembro was full.
“Last year we had 188 funerals,” the priest in Nembro, Don Matteo Cella, told Livesay. “People are planning weddings this year.”
Old traditions come 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 has hardly returned to normal; the law still requires you to wear a mask in public at all times, even outside, except when eating or drinking.
It’s a slow recovery, and one not without victims – something Beatrice’s mother knows firsthand as a COVID survivor. The virus killed her uncle and grandfather while Beatrice was still in the hospital.
“They never met Beatrice,” Zaninoni complained, adding that the illness brought the rest of the family closer than ever.
“Finally, after 40 days, Beatrice became COVID-free on Easter Day,” the mother recalls. ‘It was a true resurrection for us. Despite all the deaths in Italy, Beatrice brought us life. ‘
A year later, Italians are now eagerly awaiting vaccine doses.
The rollout in the European Union has been slower than in the US. Many Italians in their 80s still don’t know when they’ll get their first chance – a particular concern in a country with one of the oldest populations in the world.