On 7 March, Luca Franzese, an actor in the internationally acclaimed TV series Gomorrah, released a brutal video of his sister’s dead body online. Teresa Franzese died in Naples days after being infected by Covid-19 at the age of 47. The video shook many and made them realise that the invisible disease was no longer a remote possibility.
Naples’ bars were still packed the weekend before she died, despite national guidelines on social distancing. The state ended their defiant party when it implemented a nationwide ban on gatherings and travel, put a 6pm curfew in place, and closed most non-essential business as of 10 March. The restrictions were initially drafted for the northern regions where death and contagion have been highest. They were subsequently extended to the rest of the country after tens of thousands of people tried to flee the lockdown by boarding buses and trains to the south.
Fighting an epidemic with limited resources
Italy’s situation is dramatic: on 18 March deaths surpassed those witnessed in China and cases continue to rise. While media attention has mostly focused on the crisis in the north of Italy so far, it is clear that the outbreak has rapidly spread across the country. We have spoken to healthcare workers who are concerned that lower numbers in the south merely reflect lower capacity to test and diagnose. They fear it will be a matter of days before evidence of widespread, on-going contagion in the south emerges. In Naples, for example, a family doctor confirmed that many of the latest cases recorded in his region are people who escaped from the north’s lockdown.
