The lobby of The Factory residence, in Segovia , is a hotbed this morning. Alanah, an American student who does not speak a word of Spanish, observes the commotion with some displeasure. You are waiting for a Domino's pizza that arrives at the moment. While picking it up, he says soberly: "You don't have to panic, because I think that panic is worse than the virus ."

Beside him, a Korean boy shouts in English, through a mask that looks almost like a burqa: "Well, my father tells me to do the analysis, so you'll have to do it to me."

He shouts at the receptionist at the student residence, who has no protection at all , and tries to tame him by answering in a low and mechanical voice: “But if you don't have a fever, there is no analysis to do. Please do what others do: take your temperature twice a day ».

The Korean boy is not very clear and asks for help from this editor, who tries to go unnoticed in the lobby, closed to the harassment of TV cameras and journalists on Vargas Street, a stone's throw from the Aqueduct: « 35 is fever ? »Asks the boy. No, it is not fever. "In fact, it is a strange temperature, take it again, go," a friend urges beside him, laughing.

Instant isolation

Fear has a name these days in Segovia . His name is Eduardo , he has been able to know THE WORLD - without the surname having been reached. He is an Italian boy, "nice, very normal", who brought the coronavirus from Milan last Sunday and who, responsible, as soon as he had a fever on Tuesday at the last minute, raised his finger and went to the GP, He was quickly referred to the General Hospital, where the kid was instantly placed in isolation.

Since then a monumental countdown began for everyone here. Which should lead them to be released from the shadow of the virus. The problem is that it is not known very well where to put that limit. The authorities thought that the maximum incubation period was two weeks, but a recent Chinese study extends it to 24 days . In sum: a long time with the doubt of whether the virus, which after all is nothing more than a new flu and for which there is no vaccine, has nestled in this beautiful Castilian city of 155,000 inhabitants.

Eduardo, 18 years like everyone in The Factory, wrote yesterday by Whatsapp to his friends in the residence "to tell us that we are calm, that he is very well, that he has lowered his fever and is perfectly well," Giulia tells us, too Italian and also housed in the residence, attached to the campus of the Instituto de Empresa (IE) in Segovia.

Message of "total tranquility"

But in the center, besieged yesterday by the cameras, not everyone is as calm as Eduardo would like, "he feels a little guilty for the one he has armed and for having traveled," says Giulia.

Management transmits a message of "absolute normality" - everyone says they are very "calm", which suggests otherwise - and none of the workers even wear a mask, like a majority of students, all of whom have absolute freedom of movements, and many were yesterday Friday to class. But then there is the fear: Giulia assures us that Eduardo's roommate has been told not to leave the hall , and in fact the 150 residents of the residence are considered by the Ministry of Health of Castilla y León «under strict epidemiological surveillance".

They, and also the "approximately 100 people " who had contact with Eduardo that Monday between the Sunday of his return from Italy and Tuesday of the fever. Everyone should take the fever twice a day, and send a daily email to the health authorities, who carefully monitor its evolution.

At least, the territorial head of Health of Segovia, César Montarelo, yesterday cleared a species that ran like wildfire through the city since the positive was made public: no, Eduardo was not Tuesday in the Plaza Mayor at the Fiesta de Carnival , and therefore could not infect the masses - difficult thing on the other hand, but it is already known that fear is free.

"Tranquility" in the favorite cafeteria of the infected

Therefore, peace of mind at the moment in Food To Carry Pi & Ta , a nearby place of which Eduardo is habitual and that is the informal cafeteria of the residence: «Let's see, if this gets a lot we are sure that we are, because our clientele it's almost 100% boys in the residence, "the saleswoman concedes," but if they tell us to be calm, we are calm. "The boy was always accompanied by his friend Leo , who" has been self-conscious since yesterday ... I used to go to ask for a cane and gave it as a repair, I think they are a little cramped and it is normal ».

In the bar, an IE administrator is telling the "pifostio" that is mounted in the university, whose professors and even some students travel constantly between Madrid and Segovia, and in which it is taken "for granted", he says, that " there will be more contagions: coexistence is very close to those ages and it would be rare if there were no more cases ». We talk about 18-year-old kids, with life on the surface, their bodies always expanding.

The woman gives another key to the situation generated by the outbreak of the coronavirus in Segovia and the IE: «The kids are taking it with philosophy, sometimes even a bit of chirigota ... But those who embrace them are their parents . And I don't blame them: if my daughter were 10,000 kilometers away and near a focus of an unknown virus, what wouldn't I do?

It is the dilemma of Isa, who studies ADE, whose parents live in Madrid and who draws well the limbo in which these 140 boys are: «Go? No, man, I just have to stay, if I leave and I stick it to my family, imagine.

So a kind of remake of The exterminating angel is rolled these days in Segovia. Like its protagonists, a strange invisible force prevents 140 kids from leaving their home, crossing the door. It remains to be seen if it is the coronavirus, or fear.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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