Italy was the first European country to be infected by COVID-19, and we could never have imagined how dangerous or contagious it would be…we weren’t prepared. Everything was improvised due to poor information about the virus.

The coolest thing was that, due to the shortage of staff dealing with requests of help, there has been a big call for volunteers (medical and not) and a lot of young people answered to the Red Cross’s call for temporary volunteers due to the emergency (non-medical staff). These people are helping shop for groceries for those in difficulty, use the thermal scanners (where expected) to measure body temperature, help nurses to carry out testing, share info about the virus to the population, and some additional similar tasks. Sadly, I didn’t answer this call due to mental health issues, but I’m very grateful to all the young people who answered and are actually working on this. It is the best response that young people could have offered to the whole country and local communities.

This is the best Italy; my country is very generous in the case of emergencies despite the big problems that exist, and I’m really really grateful for this.  


By Valeria