Luca Saia | Venice: I am not making this up

Yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon: Lines now form outside everywhere because the number of people allowed inside is limited and precise. This emporium, part of the Prix supermarket chain, can’t allow many people at all — it’s two and a half long narrow aisles crammed beyond belief with stuff. It’s like a shotgun supermarket, so obviously we’re going to have to take turns. ( I didn’t urgently need anything so I just went home.) And because I know my readers love everything about Venice, I left the pigeon in the picture as well as the bag of garbage that should never have been hung outside at 11:30 in the morning, by which time the collector not only has already passed, but is probably taking his shower and getting ready to go home. I think people can follow some rules, but not all of them, and whoever was here decided to interpret “Do not put your trash out before 8:00 AM” as “Any time after 8:00 is fine.”

I promise and vow that I am not going to turn my blog into an endless series about the coronavirus. But considering how few people are out — and how we’re supposed to stay at least one meter away from them if they are out — and how, actually, we’re not even supposed to be out — the viral situation is the main thing on everybody’s mind.

She pauses to rub her nose with her arm.

Here are two definitely not-fun facts: As of yesterday, all hotels are closed until April 3, something which has literally never occurred in the history of the city. And as of yesterday, the gondoliers are no longer gondoling. I can’t conceive of this, but there it is: They all met, and concluded that the risk to everybody — gondoliers and passengers — was just too high. (They would have been ordered to shut down anyway, I have no doubt.) It wasn’t enough to have a bottle of hand sanitizer in the boat — people in gondolas are sitting closer than one meter apart, and the gondolier is helping them on and off at very close range.

And basically, considering that there are practically no tourists, there’s no sense in boating up. Venice without gondolas gliding along the canals, with their gondoliers yelling that kaleidoscopic badinage at each other, will have reached an entirely new level of strange.

Oh wait — it got stranger with the new decree last night: All restaurants, bars/cafe’s, and any stores other than the few essential ones (supermarket/food shops, pharmacies) and many offices are closed. Business in Venice at the moment is nearly in the condition of Monty Python’s dead parrot.

No bars, cafe’s or restaurants? Suddenly the line of places offering refreshment along the Riva degli Schiavoni looks like Coney Island in January. And completely apart from the desolation of this panorama, I realized that if I had suddenly needed a bathroom, there was no friendly bar every five steps in any direction. As Lino so helpfully pointed out, my only option would have been the nearest canal.

Many shops have taped lines on the floor one meter apart.

This is the new approach to the pharmacy, as to any of the few open shops (the bread bakery, the housewares store, etc.). A distance of one meter between individuals makes a long line in no time at all.

And speaking of lines, the enormous rush of trucks trying to get out of Italy toward Austria (and the rest of the world) via the Brenner Pass created an 80 km/50 mile backup. The police not only checked the temperature of every person in every vehicle (there were plenty of cars, too), they also verified that each vehicle had enough fuel to reach Germany without stopping. In fact, the only people permitted to enter Austria were either citizens or persons confirming that their travel did not include any stops in Austrian territory.

Back in happier days, this line of cups on the counter at the hospital cafe was enough to make me smile.

The governor of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia, is maintaining the total shutdown until April 3. If all this seems drastic, it’s the only hope the Veneto has to somehow avoid reaching one million infected by the middle of April, if the rate of contagion continues steady. That would be one person in five.

And it’s not just closing shops that’s going to do the trick. We’re all now living whwat amounts to house arrest. Staying home is Plan A of a total list of one plan. “The people of the Veneto have to realize,” Zaia said, “that the main cure against the virus is we ourselves. Do not go strolling on the beach on the weekends, do not go to shopping centers, do not go to the piazzas, do not go anywhere that isn’t your workplace or a food shop. For me, 29 people who have lost their lives is already too many.”

Lining up