Italy's Message From the Future
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2020
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many Americans still can’t imagine how the coronavirus pandemic will upend their lives. In northern Italy, no imagination is needed. Coffins pile up in churches and cemeteries as funeral gatherings remain banned. Hospitals are overwhelmed. And those who die from COVID-19 die alone.
Guest: Greta Privitera, an Italian journalist on her fourth week of lockdown in Milan.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello. |
| 0:01.0 | Hello. |
| 0:02.0 | Hello. |
| 0:03.0 | Hi, Mary. |
| 0:04.0 | Yesterday, I called up a journalist named Greta Privatara. |
| 0:08.0 | Yeah, it's me. |
| 0:09.0 | She lives in Milan. |
| 0:10.0 | So you live in Milan, but your husband's American? |
| 0:14.0 | Yeah, my husband's American. |
| 0:16.0 | Yeah, my husband is from Detroit, Michigan. |
| 0:20.0 | He's actually, like, my husband is from Detroit, Michigan. |
| 0:22.9 | He's actually like in the suburb of Detroit in a city called Norfolk. |
| 0:28.0 | Lately, Greta and her husband have been spending a lot of time on the phone with his family back in the States, |
| 0:34.2 | trying to explain how COVID-19 has changed their reality. |
| 0:38.9 | Can you put me on those phone calls with his family? |
| 0:42.1 | Because you're in Italy. |
| 0:43.8 | You're under lockdown, right? |
| 0:46.1 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 0:47.5 | But, you know, it seems like we have a FaceTime and we talk and they're like, |
| 0:53.2 | oh, how is being there? |
| 0:54.9 | Like, oh, it's horrible. |
| 0:56.2 | And they're talking like it's something that is happening here. |
... |
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