Analysis: Italy is a sinking ship - the question now is how good swimming skills one has

The whole of Italy has been quarantined for a few days. Permits are required to move out on the streets and squares. Almost only grocery stores and pharmacies are open. Not even the country's national sport - the football - has succeeded and the world renowned annual cycling race Giro d´Italia has been canceled. Even the churches have now closed.

The number of infected infected may no longer say as much about the situation anywhere as it has to do with how many people are being tested. But the number of sick people who have to be treated in healthcare is still increasing rapidly - at this moment about 7,500 people are being treated at Italian hospitals, of which 1,328 require intensive care. More than 1,400 people have died. In Lombardy, there are almost as many deaths as well explained among those received in health care.

Several hospitals in the most affected areas in the northern parts of the country are on their knees. Operating rooms have been transformed into intensive care with respirators in place. Caregivers testify to an almost inhuman situation. There is a lack of equipment that protective masks and doctors can neither go to the toilet or eat. In addition, several who work in the healthcare sector have been infected or quarantined.

But crisis management is something that Italy is good at. The centuries of earthquakes and the occasional tsunami have made them stagger.

In healthcare, people struggle to find new resources. People tell me that both young newly graduated doctors and pensioners, themselves in the risk group for dying in Covid-19, sign up to work at the heavily employed hospitals.

Factories are in operation twenty-four hours a day to maximize the production of respirators. A doctor tells me that there are far-reaching plans to change production in a factory where they usually produce bandages and tampons. Now protective masks should be manufactured instead. Prescriptions on hand spirit are sent to pharmacies so that they can make the place and sell directly.

But in a country that already had major economic problems before the epidemic, this is a huge challenge and the side effects of what is happening now are very likely to remain in Italian society for a long time.

Italy is like a ship that takes in water and it is sinking so fast that it is not even enough if everyone on board pours. Now it's all about making sure everyone is knowledgeable.

The focus is on spreading the spread - no one thinks it can stop completely. But the slower the spread, the less burden is placed on the already employed care and the greater the chance to even begin to approach a normality.

The Italian restrictions may seem extreme to us right now. But we may not be so quick to judge. Because in these times, uncertainty is great and Italy is a country that is currently focusing all its efforts on keeping its nose above the surface.