CASTELBUONO, Sicily (CN) — It wasn't long ago that Castelbuono was held up as a success story in keeping the novel coronavirus off its streets and as someone else's messy and traumatic reality.
But in the space of three weeks, this mountain burg in northern Sicily, a charming former Medieval fiefdom with a rich cultural history, went from zero Covid-19 cases to more than 100.
That's a lot for a community with about 9,000 residents. In epidemiological terms, Castelbuono is experiencing what is known as “community spread,” a state where the virus is quickly passing from one person to another and, if left unchecked, can lead to out-of-control transmission.
It's a harsh dose of reality that populations around the world have had to swallow: The moment when the coronavirus is no longer an imaginary threat.
Castelbuono is in the midst of a wave of infections hitting southern Italy, one of Europe's poorer regions where public health systems have been weakened by cuts in recent decades and where lockdowns are exasperating tough economic conditions. Sicily's unemployment rate stands at about 40%.
In Naples, hospitals were so overwhelmed, patients were treated in parking lots and videos surfaced on social media showing at least two Covid-19 patients who'd died inside hospital bathrooms.
The Campania region ran low on oxygen tanks and struggled with a shortage of medical staff. Similar problems have been reported in Sicily, which is pleading with Cuba to send medical teams. Cuba has dispatched its health workers around the world during the pandemic, earning the communist island nation praise.
A walk through Castelbuono finds a town in a state of anxiety where the residents, under orders to wear masks and keep distant from one another, can't help but carry on their customary banter — though at a bit more of a distance.
Now, though, the conversations are tinged with recriminations and criticisms of the conduct of others for not wearing their masks properly or not at all, for spitting in the street, for holding parties away from prying eyes in the countryside, for not obeying the 10 p.m. curfew.
“You see 15-20 people sitting there on the benches in front of the cafe in the square, doing nothing,” one man complained, stopping to join a discussion outside a store. “The cafe owners need to tell them all to scatter. It's not right! And the town police don't do anything. Zero patrols!”
“My house has a balcony that overlooks the square,” he continued, bringing up another piece of evidence about how he sees his fellow citizens misbehaving and helping the virus spread.
“I watched a woman inspect every pepper, each one,” he said, referring to the piles of fruit and vegetable for sale outside a store on the square. “She picked up each pepper and no one said anything to her! I went down there myself and told them to stop her from touching all the vegetables!”
The store owner he was talking with nodded, his face shrouded in concern. He was in the mood to blame the mayor — as so many townsfolk are ready to do now. The mayor, a center-left politician called Mario Cicero, is coming under a lot of fire for not alerting Castelbuono quickly enough about the discovery of the first infections and for not doing more to enforce a curfew and other restrictions.
Many people are blaming the arrival of the virus on the casual behavior of young people.
“He's being light-handed,” the store owner said. “He doesn't want to create any enemies.”
Making matters worse for the mayor, his administration was marketing the town as a safe place to visit because it was “Covid free” and declaring itself a success story. Castelbuono largely depends on tourists and its economy has suffered since the pandemic started.