Chronicle: The whole of Italy is a sore wound

I was here throughout the beginning of the corona crisis, walking on the empty streets of Milan and standing on a sunny February day at the barricades in the red zone at Codogno in Lombardy, Europe's first epicenter. In the zone were the cure for infection, my photographer and I did reportage for Rapport and Aktuellt without any idea what was expected of Italy and the world.

Once back in Rome I got to experience how the crisis escalated, how the infection spread, the death toll rose faster and faster, and at the same rate, the fear grew.

Then came the shutdown, the total. For almost six weeks the Italians have now been forced to stay in their homes, as I have now when I come back after a time in Sweden.

My flight to Rome, via Paris, was like something out of a disaster movie. Arlanda and Charles de Gaulle lay deserted, silent, empty, everyone wore face masks on board, I had to show so many certificates that I lost the bill, state who would pick me up in Rome, car, car number, address - everything.

From the fear is born the control society. Today, out of work at the food market Mercato Trifonfale, we were stopped by a police officer who wanted to see a job certificate. At the beautiful square of Piazza del Popolo, it was the military who controlled us. Outside the market, then a riot broke out, a man wanted to go in without a face mask, he was not allowed to shop and was rejected. The majority of Italians bite together in the home but as the summer heat rises outside the windows and you have at least two weeks in quarantine to cure, frustration increases.

On the way home we filled up water in one of Rome's fine little drinking fountains, we were hot and nowhere can you buy a bottle of water if you do not want to queue at the grocery store, sometimes for hours.

I now sit and write on the roof terrace, blessing the opportunity to be outdoors. On other terraces I see people reading, jogging around, playing with their children, eating dinner.

Many families find it more difficult without the least opportunity to get out and the Italian government knows that people's physical and mental health lies in one scales. Like the threat of depression, violence and unrest, as well as mass unemployment and widespread poverty. Unless society opens again. At the same time, around 500-600 people per day continue to die and so far close to 23,000 people have died. The whole of Italy is an aching wound and a boiling cauldron of various emotions.

Summer is around the corner but no one knows how it will be. Should we wear face mask on the beach? Should the proposal for plexiglass between the sunbeds be taken seriously? How long can we just think and talk about the virus? When can we go to a bar, have an ice cream, sit in the sun and not have to tell anyone why we are out and where we are going? The simplest of things, how precious they become when we lose them.