sre0r2020, Coronavirus hits talys socla made! had | Financial Times Coronavirus Coronavirus hits Italy's social model hard Emergency measures isolating elderly are affecting tracitionally tight-knit families [An elderly man witha protective mask walks in Venice, onthe fourth day ofan unprecedented lockdown across al tly, impased to slow the outoreak of coronavirus © Manuel Sivestri/Reuters Miles Johnson and Davide Ghiglione in Rome MARCH 16 2020 Paola, a 38-year-old mother of two living near Venice, usually sees her elderly parents daily. But since the start of Italy's coronavirus outbreak she has been forced to halt any close personal contact. Fearful of the risks of transmitting a virus that has already claimed the lives of 1,809 Italians — almost all over the age of 60 — she must stay away. “My parents haven’t seen their grandchildren for over a week now, my father has underlying health conditions and we are worried for his heart,” she said. “We are bringing him and my mum food regularly but we have to leave it outside their house. They say ‘hi’ from the window”. Around 23 per cent of Italy’s population is aged over 65, the largest proportion in the EU. More than 4m Italians are aged 80 and over. As of Friday 35 per cent of those who have died from coronavirus in Italy were aged between 70 and 79, and 43 per cent were aged 80-89, according to the Istituto Superiore di Sanita, the technical-scientific arm of the country’s national health hitps Aww. conveontenagh2e082-6791-t10a-600d.6a70efI5o8d3 4sre0r2020, Coronavirus hits talys socla made! had | Financial Times service. Last Friday in Bergamo, one of the worst-hit cities in the region of Lombardy where almost half of Italy’s active infections are located, L’Eco di Bergamo, a local newspaper, had to increase the number of pages devoted to obituaries from one and a half to ten. As the elderly lie sick, their families are FT Opinion . unable to see them for safety reasons, while public funerals are outlawed under current emergency legislation. 1 Eat When Giuseppe Conte, prime minister, last FT Opinion week announced he was placing the entire Catch up with the latest opinion country under lockdown, he made explicit articles from the Financial Times by reference to the need for all Italians to make subscribing to our FT Opinion email sacrifices for the sake of their parents and newsletter. Sign up here for your -andparents. daily guide to today's debates. Branco’ “Our habits must be changed now,” he said. “For the sake of our loved ones, our parents, our grandparents. We have to do it now because there is no time,” he said. The coronavirus is not only claiming many lives among Italy's large elderly population, it is also challenging the country’s family-orientated social model. So- called social distancing between generations poses a particularly acute problem in a society where it is not only common for grandparents to live close to their children and grandchildren, but also to live with them in the same house. “This is hitting Italy hard — the essence of Italian society is the respect for and role of elderly people,” says Andrea Prencipe, rector of Rome’s Luiss university. “It is an important Italian cultural trait. Having parents living far away from where we are is not easy for us. Most of us, including elderly people, are very resistant to change their behaviour. Just to convince my father, who is aged 83, not to go out and instead psu comveontraSb20002-671-t160-0004.a7OcHBo4dd 24sre0r2020, Coronavirus hits talys socla made! had | Financial Times ask someone else to bring the groceries, was not an easy task”. Itis also common for younger people to live with their parents until well into their 30s, making isolating the young from the old even harder. The percentage of young Italians living with their parents is also among the highest in the EU, with 66 per cent aged between 18 and 34 doing so in 2018, according to Eurostat, compared to an EU average of 48 per cent. Grandparents also play an important role in looking after grandchildren when their own children need to work. The risks of young children infecting their grandparents means that this vital family function has been disrupted. “When I was growing up in Puglia most of my family used to live in the same building on different floors — my grandparents, uncles, the children,” said Mr Prencipe. “My grandparents were a kindergarten, as all the grandchildren lived in the same building. That is normal for many families in Italy”. While they are isolated from their families, the elderly are unable to do other things in which they would usually find solace in a dark moment, including going to church. Seventy-year-old Ornella Morvillo from Rome said that when she was told she had to stop going to church every Sunday she felt “dismayed”. “When I went to my parish and our priest told us that was the last mass we could attend in person, I thought: God is the only one who can protect us now!” Don Romano De Angelis, a parish priest at the church San Luca Evangelista in the working-class Roman neighbourhood of Preniestino, said he is trying to keep in contact with the elderly in his community. They are less used than younger Italians to using social media or the internet to communicate during the lockdown. “The ones who are struggling the most to use social media are older parishioners, but my ministers of holy communion and I talk to them on the phone as much as we can, not to make them feel lonely” Mr De Angelis said. There are signs, however, that the elderly are adapting to crisis conditions. Mrs Ips: comleororvasb2002-6781-1es-800¢-doefb ass vs202020 Coronovius isa’ soil made hard [Fnac Teves Morvillo and her fellow churchgoers have started praying for each other via WhatsApp, sending each other photos of the Virgin Mary or other saints, as well as the schedule of all masses and religious programming on television. “[ follow all the religious TV channels from my living room,” she said. “And I pray a lot, especially for the ones who don’t have a house and don’t know where to go during such a difficult time.” Read more about the impact of coronavirus © The latest figures as the outbreak spreads © How countries around the world are battling coronavirus © How dangerous is the coronavirus and how does it spread? Subscribers can use myFT to follow the latest ‘coronavirus’ coverage Sign up to the three times a week Coronavirus Business Update email One-Click Sign Up Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2020. 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