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Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

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Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#31
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worked elsewhere so there is good reason to hope that it will work in Italy as well. It sucks that we have to wait five days to find out though. What I wouldn't give for a crystal ball right now.

A lockdown has worked in only one place: China. And it worked because the measures were extreme: not allowing people to leave their homes (except once a week to go shopping), banning cars on the roads, closing workplaces, etc. No country is implementing measures nearly as extreme as China, so they won't be as successful in slowing down the epidemic. Before someone mentions South Korea: Korean CDC explained their epid…

[deleted]

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#32
post #24
post #8

Italian here, north-west. Media are really exaggerating with the situation with daily life and routine, we are allowed to take a walk and go to bars or restaurants if there is one meter of distance between people. The real problem is in the hospitals, and for some enterprises who will really have a loss in these weeks (everything about tourism, for example). One of the biggest downsides is that people are not allowed…

>Italian here, north-west. Media are really exaggerating with the situation with daily life and routine, we are allowed to take a walk and go to bars or restaurants if there is one meter of distance between people. That seems ... like it would be really hard to do consistently adhere to and enforce, especially when it goes against social conventions and the places fill up to capacity.

Presumably people realize why it’s in place and how it benefits them?

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#33

A lockdown is obviously not an enjoyable thing, but it is necessary to flatten the curve [^1] and it's downsides are less severe then it's benefits if done correctly. Keep this in mind as the situation continues to evolve. Stock things in your house which bring you joy (good food, games, good books) and do your best to spread confidence to others around you. If you have enough space to get in some exercise, even if i…

Imagine if steam takes advantage of this to have a coronavirus sale. 50% off all zombie themed games for the coming month.

I got a good chuckle out of this comment. Thanks.

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#34
post #25
post #8

Italian here, north-west. Media are really exaggerating with the situation with daily life and routine, we are allowed to take a walk and go to bars or restaurants if there is one meter of distance between people. The real problem is in the hospitals, and for some enterprises who will really have a loss in these weeks (everything about tourism, for example). One of the biggest downsides is that people are not allowed…

Modern media is really doing more harm than good. Elevating threat perception for everything has become a daily occurance. One day it's North Korea nukes. Another day it's Russians. Another it's Iran. Another day it's climate, #metoo, immigrants, shooters etc etc. I grew up at a time where the threats were even worse but we weren't surrounded by unqualified people falling over each other inducing anxiety in everyone…

Cable TV news was a massive experiment to try and find out if there is actually 24 hours' worth of news that happens every day. One which failed to reject the null hypothesis.

Social media journalism is merely a replication study.

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if steam takes advantage of this to have a coronavirus sale. 50% off all zombie themed games for the coming month.

It would probably be in bad taste to theme it so...on the nose, but I'd believe that it's a good time to be releasing a fresh game right now. It's certainly a terrible time for games in development, with work collaboration maybe disrupted and with all the big publicity events getting cancelled, and it's a bad time for other media that bank a lot on physical releases (e.g. theatrical releases for movies getting pushed…

I don't think it would be in bad taste if it's clearly hyperbolic and perhaps it is coupled with informational messages. PornHub is famous for doing this.

There's also a funeral services company in Rome whose death-themed ads have become a meme ("don't worry antivaxers, we will always be ready to help if you die"), we love it. :-)

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#36
post #30

A lockdown is obviously not an enjoyable thing, but it is necessary to flatten the curve [^1] and it's downsides are less severe then it's benefits if done correctly. Keep this in mind as the situation continues to evolve. Stock things in your house which bring you joy (good food, games, good books) and do your best to spread confidence to others around you. If you have enough space to get in some exercise, even if i…

edit: fair I'll retract this

I'm unfamiliar with this person. Do you have a reason to doubt that the author has the MPH that they assert that they have?

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#37
This kind of reporting seems counterproductive. A more helpful headline would be something like, “In locked down Italy, life is mostly normal.” The body of the article is OK, but the tone seems intentionally negative when the same facts could easily have been presented hopefully.

One of my biggest concerns is that places in the United States, or other countries, will adopt aggressive social distancing policies early, while the number of cases is low, and then the backlash against those policies will be that “this is hell, and the virus isn’t even affecting that many people.” That can lead to pressure to drop the policies prematurely when the virus is nowhere near contained yet.

This is a great opportunity for responsible journalism to strike a tone of optimistic “we are all in this together, it is very serious, but if we all do the right thing we should be OK.” Fear mongering on the one hand, or dismissal and backlash on the other, are both extremely harmful — But good for Clickbait and selling ads. We really need the media to resist that during this emergency.

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#38
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Italian here, north-west. Media are really exaggerating with the situation with daily life and routine, we are allowed to take a walk and go to bars or restaurants if there is one meter of distance between people. That seems ... like it would be really hard to do consistently adhere to and enforce, especially when it goes against social conventions and the places fill up to capacity.

Presumably people realize why it’s in place and how it benefits them?

I realize I shouldn't be touching my face, but it's so automatic that I have to keep stopping myself and it's a constant battle.

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#39
post #30

A lockdown is obviously not an enjoyable thing, but it is necessary to flatten the curve [^1] and it's downsides are less severe then it's benefits if done correctly. Keep this in mind as the situation continues to evolve. Stock things in your house which bring you joy (good food, games, good books) and do your best to spread confidence to others around you. If you have enough space to get in some exercise, even if i…

edit: fair I'll retract this

What’s wrong with the author’s credentials at the bottom of the page?

Re: Italy's Coronavirus Lockdown Upends the Most Basic Routines and Joys

#40
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are introduced to someone (a stranger), it is normal courtesy to shake hands with him/her (and that's it, no hugs, no kisses), as well, unless the other person is an old friend the normal shaking of hands is the normal means of greeting. In northern Italy, most of the times. In southern Italy, kissing is much more common and it's often used even in formal environments. Shaking hands it's seen as polite but c…

Well, no. Again, we are not talking of old friends, we are talking of strangers. Even in the south (I lived in sicily almost 15 years) it is not at all common.

Why are we talking about strangers when the context was a restaurant manager greeting customers? Every decent restaurant that's been open for any length of time has a large number of regular customers.
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