On January 30th the first coronavirus cases appeared in Rome, and Italy suspended all flights from China. On that day I wrote my first message to my family regarding coronavirus, worried. I looked for face masks, but there were none to be found anywhere. On February 4th while in Lausanne for work, I managed to find masks near the train station and bought what I thought would be enough at the time—ten masks—and wore one for the first time on the train back to Milano. On February 27th the cases rose to 650 and I was unable to return to Bethlehem and got stranded in Rome. On February 29th, cases rose to 1128 with 29 people dead. By March 7th, Italy was reporting more deaths from the virus than any other country in the world. By March 19th the death toll in Italy surpassed China’s, and on March 24th —when I filmed this—the daily death toll stood at 743.
