Their eyes are empty. Everybody knows someone who died. The graves at the cemetery have been covered in a rush. There’s a before and after the pandemic in Bergamo and Nembro, two cities that are among the hardest hit by COVID-19 in Italy. A restaurant owner has lost 80% of his turnover. A young funeral director had to pick up the deceased at the hospital morgue. The bodies, placed in black plastic bags, were everywhere, on shelves and on the floor. Many people have lost, and they meet at public memorial services for the dead that they didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to. The citizens of Bergamo and Nembro are still in mourning.
Fabrizio Assoleni is a patient at the hospital in Bergamo, L’Ospedale Papa Giovanni XXIII. He’s in a unit for patients who have been tested positive for covid-19, but who are hospitalized for other reasons.