As 60 million Italians face a coronavirus country-wide lockdown, many daily inte...
NEW YORK/LONDON - As 60 million Italians face a coronavirus country-wide lockdown, many daily interactions among family, friends and colleagues have moved to messaging platforms such as Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp and Microsoft’s Corp Skype.
Italians say staying in touch through these platforms is helping them cope with isolation and anxiety, in a country that has already reported more than 1,260 deaths due to the virus. In some cases it is also giving them remote access to some mental healthcare providers, or even allowing hospitalized coronavirus patients to interact with loved ones.
Responding to the spread of the disease in Europe’s worst affected country, the Italian government has banned all non-essential travel and public gatherings until April 3 and shuttered most businesses and services. Cecilia Zadra, a 28-year-old psychologist who works in a elderly care facility in a heavily affected area in the north of the country, this week helped residents, some older than 90, use iPads to make their first-ever video calls to family.
Livia Sala, a 35-year-old from Turin who works in a family-owned business, started asking friends on WhatsApp to share stories about food, or favorite recipes for her to reproduce and share with the group.
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