Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

thanks, seen that one and as you say flight ok.
i am not holding my breath, either way got to return hire car.
initial question was traveling to airport, now it's, is there a plane.
strange times

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Strange times indeed. Have just seen this on the BBC Live Feed
Ryanair has announced it has cancelled all international flights to and from Italy from Saturday until 9 April.

Passengers who need to return home can switch to one of the flights operating up to the end of the day on Friday.

A Ryanair spokesman said: "Ryanair apologises sincerely to all customers for these schedule disruptions, which are caused by national government restrictions and the latest decision of the Italian government to lock down the entire country to combat the Covid-19 virus."

Meanwhile, British Airways is cancelling all UK-Italy flights until 4 April, and airline Jet2 has cancelled their flights to and from the country until 26 April.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-51811969

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Anyone who needs to return home is allowed to travel to the airport/port/station. Whether there will be a plane is getting less and less likely.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

I have just been to renew my tessera sanitaria at the ASL. The assistant is behind glass wearing a face mask that doesn't make for easy communication. She told me next time I will need a permesso di sorgiorno permanente. At another shop they had built a plastic box around the counter and everyone is shouting.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Our local shops have varying procedures- gloves or not, hand gel or not, wait one metre away from the person in front at the till-but inside the shop this does not apply.
Only one person at a time inside the farmacia-queue outside. Most people are wearing masks but you can't buy any now!
My Italian is very poor but now I don't understand anything that people who wear masks say DOH!

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

In my comune where I am a resident, I know I can go to the supermarket and the chemist etc, but..........can I go out for lunch without getting a sanzione ?...............obviously it's not an emergency :unsure:

PSG

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

All the Health Service Offices are making people queue outside. It is a good thing that the warm weather is returning. Lets hope a good blast of summer heat gets rid of the problem.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

I don't know what to make of this

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...avel-home.html

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

That's usually how I feel after reading a DM article. :unsure:

"Driving through the night" seems a bit melodramatic, for a journey between two cities that are only 115kms apart! :rolleyes:

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

An interesting article explaining the situation in Italy and warning against indecision.. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fe...120514339.html

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Fingers crossed, although it's not at all certain that this coronavirus is seasonal. For example, Australia and Canada are roughly the same size, Australia's population is around 23 million while Canada's is around 35 million. The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Australia is higher than that of Canada, and Australia has just been through a searingly hot summer. Still warm here now, yesterday was 35C in Perth.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

If heat would be beneficial why do hot countries have a problem? See Singapore, Thailand.
Just heard on Austrian ORF tonight that the corona family generally doesn't like heat, this present one hasn't been tested for its dislike of heat. Keep fingers crossed.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

It's been reported in the UK that the virus doesn't appear to spread over 25º-26ºC. The theory is that the cases in Singapore and other SE Asian countries are people who caught it is China.

I am not saying that I am convinced about either assertion, but that is what has been reported in the UK.

Certainly India is under-achieving will fewer than 100 cases reported as of yesterday but with a population of 1.3 Bn and having three of the worlds largest and most densely populated cities in the world - of course numbers may be significantly under-reported. :unsure:
But are the Australian cases people who contracted the disease in Australia, or who arrived in the country already infected?

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

I can't help but wonder at the wisdom or lack of it on display here. They call it total lockdown yet having had a look at some of the various autostrada webcams around the country yesterday I can see that much of the network is in some places still nose to tail with trucks ( although only a very few cars).
There was a long queue of trucks on the A22 northbound yesterday near Vipiteno.
So what we have is essentially an almost total lockdown for the average Joe : a friend of mine in a village near Turin tells me they can't leave the village and are pretty much completely confined to the house, but according to the live autostrada webcams, commercial traffic is moving quite freely and pretty much without restriction across the entire country.
We also have international flights still coming and going at least until Saturday.
All economic concerns at such a radical and unprecedented move notwithstanding, we have to ask ourselves if all of these stringent measures and restrictions applied to normal people but not to commerce is actually anything more than a political face saving exercise for certain cynical people who want to be seen to be doing something, and who don't want their glittering governmental careers damaged, rather than out of any real concern for ordinary folk on the ground, and whether any of it will make any difference at all with all these international trucks and planes moving around freely, and potentially still just spreading the disease around further from country to country with glee to the same extent as before the lockdown..?

It all still seems like a media driven mass hysterical overreaction to me which will likely be as ineffective as if the whole business had been left to run its course. I do not see the point of it.


A quote from the Guardian live coronavirus blog today :

Why is the UK not doing the same as Italy?

Johnson suggested the decisions had come about because politicians and governments around the world are under a lot of pressure to be seen to act, so they may do things that are not necessarily dictated by the science.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

I would have a look at the 1918 flu details on Wiki. Governments do what they think best based on the advice they are giving by so called experts. Trucks are still moving as people still need food. Your reaction to let it happen I'm sure has been considered as it would likely be a quick way to vaccinate a mass of the population. The fact it may wipe out a few thousand (100s millions) of old useless, weak people will save a fortune in NHS time and money. The economy would thrive and the smaller number of people help the planet. I’m just glad someone else is running the country, aren’t you?

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

The point I'm trying to make Geordie is that it isn't a complete lockdown, and as such will be relatively ineffective as the disease is still more or less completely free to move around and doing this simply gives politicians a cynical chance to save their own skins as they are seen to be making an attempt, as useless or pointless as it may be... None of us are supposed to live forever despite liberal outrage to the contrary, knee jerk reactions, and/or virtue signalling, and there is already way too much of that nonsense whipping everyone up in to a frenzy via the news media.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Yep Jake, I understood your point only too well. However, people need food to live and some of them have to travel around to get to work, else those in need go without their help.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

A danger for Italy is the illness taking hold in the south. Hospitals there struggle on a normal day. Just the virus test itself is quite costly. Italy isnt keen to spend money in the south and he mafia will be busy calculating how to profit from the situation.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

I'm not in Italy but watch from the Austrian side. Austria set up border and health checks on several road borders to Italy. Flights from here have ceased, train service apparently was stopped. But why do Italians still ferry people to the Brenner where the journey ends for them?
Slovenia apparently closed the border because Italians hopped across to do their shopping despite a country in lockdown".
One wonders.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Ansa says they are closing the Brenner tonight.
Trump stopped all flights from Europe but still allowed flights from UK!

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

All crossings should be closed. Nearly all infections in Austria have their origin in Italy/Suedtirol. Plus a few sick Brits.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Perhaps he's thinking of a common area with the UK, where the virus can run free and exhaust itself like the plague in old times.
Honestly Trump and Johnson make a fine pair, completely irresponsible and blinkered. Johnson still thinks of nothing but Brexit.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

I like the comment from an english medical guy: " Don't act like you don't want to get it, act like you have it and don't want to pass it on" great advice. Our neighbours are an old couple and their two daughters and grandkids are in and out all day!

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

If you shut down truck transport, shops are going to run out of food in as little as 7 days, even for processed food in tins and packets - I used to work for a major UK food company and their massive warehouse in Gloucester only actually held food supplies for about one week, and deliveries to supermarkets were twice weekly, so if deliveries stopped the shelves would be bare of most common foods in around 4 days. Obviously fresh food is going to start running out much sooner - probably noticeably so to supermarkets within 48 hours.

Therefore when facing a disease with an incubation period of 14 days, you'd generate a food supply panic long before locking down all transportation had enough time to impact the spread of the disease.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

At least Trump has finally grasped that something might not be quite right. Johnson is relying on the goldilocks strategy of herd immunity.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

We've cancelled our holiday. Of everywhere we were going, I was looking forward to Sicily the most.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

I realise that there are going to be many businesses suffering and going under because of this pandemic, but am interested to see who is going to profit from it.
Once it is over, the usual suspects will gave made money from the misery of so many. Do you imagine Warren Buffet has followed the bear market?
There will also be some unforseen benefits - pollution levels have dropped in northern Italy.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

This typifies everything I love about Italy and Italians. True or made up it matters not…. I do not intend to put a Twitter (I call it something slightly different) link here, but if you look for “Italians singing to each other out of the window” it comes up with the results of what it says is happening in Siena – superb!

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

My neighbours belong to a karaoke club and they are singing every night. They are shouting a lot more now since they are stuck at home.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

The infection rates in the UK and Ireland are substantially lower than in Continental Europe (combined UK + Ireland have about the same number of cases as Denmark), and the CTA not being part of Schengen, means there are at least some checks and border controls. Being islands also helps to be able to the situation a bit more. That is why they were left out of the ban but that will be revisited if/when numbers spike in the UK.

Exclude Italy, and the number of infected in Continental Europe is still about 9x higher than in the United States. The Americans may be having huge issues testing but so are most of the Continental European countries - and European governments have been a lot slower and a lot more sluggish in appreciating the gravity of the situation than the rest of the world.

It was evident the moment the first major cluster appeared in Lombardia that it was going to explode across the continent, for all of these reasons - I said it to my wife the night the news broke, when she asked why only Italy seemed to be affected. I said - it isn't just Italy, the world just doesn't know it yet.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Xi apparently showed up in Wuhan last week, and if my Italian is good enough, I think I read in the online papers that China has sold 2 million facemasks and something like 10,000 ventilators to Italy. All very good indicators that the Chinese think they have a handle on it now - so the blueprint is there. The infection rate in South Korea has also plunged.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Donated I read. Not sold.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Did you read anything about China also sending 10 or 12 virus experts, who I think are now already in Milan?

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

5 experts I read. Plane landed yesterday or the night before with the experts on board and something like 5 or 7 cargo pallets of all those masks and ventilators.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

My wife also just said "donated" and not "sold." Can't remember where I saw "sold" or if I just imagined that.

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...b499b07e84.jpg

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...76300411ad.jpg
Stolen from Guardian

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

UK and Ireland just added to the USA ban

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

Best not to shout this in a public place "Sono positivo."
https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cro...4d20fc75a.html

Re: Anybody in a lockdown zone?
 

We don't know what category he was in - mentally ill or just 'terminally stupid' Whichever, it's not a course of action I was planning on ;)