An Emotional Plea from Italy: Stay Home to Save Lives

In the midst of coronavirus panic: An Israeli residing in Rome shared a video addressing the posts she saw on social media in Israel, about children playing in parks 'as usual' and life seemingly continuing uninterrupted, while in Italy, the country is 'on fire.'

"Even when people go out to run alone, it's masses of people out running on Shabbat, then it becomes a huge crowd running together, and children playing in parks. I've been debating whether to talk about this because I'm not preaching, but if we're discussing mutual responsibility and how we're interdependent—our health is linked as well—and we see just how much. 

"We need to care more about each other than we usually do. I couldn't stop myself from filming this video even if some might be upset: You simply don't understand what's happening around the world. It's not happening three hours away from you, in Italy. And it's not happening five hours away from you, in London, where there's a complete lockdown and people are afraid to go out. The pandemic is taking over, reaching new dimensions, yet some people complacently continue going out as if nothing happened. But a lot has happened: yesterday alone, 627 people died in one day. I live in central Rome, and it's simply a place in mourning. A country in mourning, where hundreds die every day.

"Lombardy has been under lockdown for three weeks, and lockdown isn't a two-week quarantine where you say 'Wow, how fun. I can order from this or that restaurant.' It's not. You don't meet anyone; you live in social isolation. It's a lockdown. I have family and friends in Israel, and it's very, very, very important that people understand what's happening here. It's on the news in Israel, but it's not strong enough to convey the enormity of this situation. I don't want to scare you; I don't live in fear. I live my daily life joyfully, but we need to take responsibility for our lives and others—because we don't just harm ourselves, we infect others, not just one person.

"We'll infect two, those two will infect four, and so forth. This is what an epidemic is. It's a virus spreading worldwide, and if we fail to understand that, we won't overcome it. And if we don't make this effort together, globally, it won't happen even if we close Israel’s or Italy’s border. This is about responsibility we all need to take."