The government’s historic ordering of a nationwide lockdown — limiting the movement of 60 million people — has transformed Italy into a testing ground for not only what it might take to control the virus, but how much a democracy is willing to upend life’s most basic routines and joys.

In Rome on Tuesday, the city was moving at a crawl. People tele-worked or didn’t work at all; they wore masks or wrapped scarves around their mouths; they kept a suspicious distance from others. They tried to drop the habits that seemed suddenly dangerous — the kiss greeting; the chat at the cafe counter — even as depression and deep financial pain seemed like unavoidable side effects of the lockdown.

“I’m mostly sealed indoors,” said Ivano Canni, 49, a newsstand owner, describing his sense, building for many other Italians as well, that any social contact carries a risk. “I’m trying to stand two meters apart from others. I open my door to let fresh air in for half an hour or so, then close it back.”

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[Source: Washington Post]