♪♪
-The lockdown was dramatic.
Since the 8th of March, when the lockdown order was given,
the city was completely deserted.
-The absolute silence was striking.
In the sense that Cremona, being a medium-size city,
has a rather lively city life.
-In fact, one of the things that was the soundtrack of the day
at that time was the
noise of the ambulances.
-It just seemed like something that was so far away from us,
that it wouldn't affect us.
Then, instead, we began to understand
that the thing was serious.
♪♪
The school closed, so I have the children at home,
my husband at home,
and my family, until last year, also included my mom, Sandra.
Mom was a foundation for us.
Especially since Dad died in 2006.
She came to our house every day.
There wasn't a day we didn't have her,
and if we don't see her we called her.
She was a very active woman, she had been a seamstress
since she was 15 years old,
and was very loved by both her customers and her friends.
-I have known [Sandra] since I was a little girl.
A very good woman, a very hard worker.
A woman very dear to her family,
who really gave her life for her family in every way.
♪♪
[sobs]
-Then it happened that my mom's brother got sick
with a non-covid disease,
and she kept going to take care of him
even though we yelled at her for it.
After this, Mom began to have some symptoms.
So we looked after her and we heard from the doctor.
Her doctor was sick with covid at the time,
but her son was filling in for her.
On Saturday at midday, he came over.
I point out that my mom, with the fever, has gotten up,
had changed the sheets, had cleaned everything
because the doctor was coming.
I yelled at her so much but you couldn't [stop her],
she was like that.
When [the doctor] told us that she had pneumonia,
and one lung was completely clogged
and the other almost clogged,
all that could be done was to take her to the hospital.
She had made me swear five minutes earlier
that she wouldn't go.
But there was nothing else to do.
I tried to ask if it was possible,
maybe with oxygen at home,
to keep her at home, but the doctor said no.
And the last thing we did together...
it was the rosary.
Because, as I perceived it, we had to entrust this moment
to someone else who was not us,
because we would not have solved the situation.
♪♪
-I've been dealing with covid
since the 21st of February of last year,
when we had the first big wave.
In the first [wave], there were 400 deaths,
in the second [wave], there were about 60 deaths.
The average age of our patients who died during the second phase
is high, 80 years of age.
But we also have young patients, unfortunately,
who were 48-50 years old died.
-Mom video called me in the morning, and I was able
to take a screenshot that I keep on my phone.
I think this is the most beautiful blessing
that we could have.
That night we felt her at peace.
So that Monday morning, when at 10:14 a.m. I'll never forget it.
The phone rang. Private number.
Didn't expect that phone call.
When I heard "I'm the doctor, I have to give you bad news,"
I screamed, right, I think they heard me from a distance.
The whole family came down,
and I handed my husband the phone,
and then we learned that my mom didn't make it.
The thing that consoles us, and that her bedside neighbor
told me, is that she lost consciousness,
so she didn't realize that,
everything lasted very short, not even an hour.
And that consoles me,
because it would have been the death that mom wanted,
she always told us she did not want to suffer.
We had to wait 12 days to get my mom's body
because there were so many corpses.
When they returned her [body] to us, to cremate her,
we were able to accompany her.
That was the only time we could really be close to her.
She was there with us, then we didn't see her again.
After about 15 days, I think, they returned her cremated body,
and then we could bury her with my dad.
Not a day goes by, not an hour goes by,
that my mom isn't remembered.
-There are so many missing people,
of advanced age and less advanced age...
that are like a piece of the country.
They have been part of the education and the growth
of a few generations.
-Now we're in a, let's say, stable phase.
Not particularly quiet but stable.
We're a little bit better at managing the disease,
but the drugs we have available are very few.
The vaccination plan is moving forward, and let's just say
we're vaccinating everyone who can be vaccinated.
-We are now set up in this ward,
which is a temporary arrangement, that we had to
set up quickly,
and we're setting up to go to a bigger space,
probably will be the Cremona expo area,
where we can do four times as much [vaccinations] as here.
So over a thousand people a day, here in Cremona.
-But while we're waiting for the vaccine to protect us,
we have to try to keep the virus from mutating,
and keep the virus from spreading.
It's a very difficult phase, it's a very positive phase
because we finally have the vaccine,
we can see the light at the end of the tunnel,
but unfortunately we can't say today that everything is over.
Once we have vaccinated a good portion of the populations
we will be able to feel more comfortable.