Pandemic Diary Rome

I don't write that much on this blog anymore, mostly because I use Facebook for the bulk of my thoughts these days, but every so often it's good to put something up here if for no other reason than to serve as a sort of diary entry for myself. Everyone is going through this Covid-19 global pandemic these days, though here in Italy it was one of the early epicenters of the virus. The entire country was shut down about two weeks ago.

Empty street in center of Rome

 While most of my colleagues stay home, I'm unfortunately considered to be an 'essential' employee, so I continue to have to go to work. It's an eerie experience walking through the heart of historic Rome and seeing how empty everything is.

Piazza del Popolo with no people

I couldn't take photos in some spots, like the Trevi Fountain, because there was a cordon of police officers and I didn't want a confrontation with them.

The Spanish Steps

Walking down the Spanish Steps, the two lady police officers that you see in the picture stopped me to make me show my paperwork that allows me to be outside.

Sadly, the past couple days I have started to see more and more cars and people out, which tells me that people are starting to lose patience with staying indoors. But this will only help the virus to start spreading again.

I feel a tad prescient, since my novel The Immortality Game has a Dark Times from the middle of this century until the start of the next, and the Dark Times was caused by a mixture of the effects of global climate change and a terrible pandemic, much worse than our current one.

I hope that our scientists find a vaccine sooner rather than later, so we can save many more lives.