For a month, Kate Langbroek has been confined to her home in Northern Italy.
The radio host has been in lockdown in Bologna with her family since the country closed down to all but essential services on March 9, describing it as a “grind”.
Speaking in Channel Ten documentary Coronavirus Australia: Our Story on Tuesday night, Kate explained Australians were where Italians were a few weeks ago.
Kate Langbroek on lockdown in Italy. Post continues below video.
“And the only way to sort of stop it seems to be by having a lockdown. The streets are reminiscent of some sort of Armageddon-ish movie starring Will Smith, I guess,” she said.
Langbroek recalled that at first, being put into lockdown was a relief, but as time went on it became harder to stay motivated.
“When lockdown comes, and this will sound strange, but it’s almost kind of a relief because it’s a circuit break and the sudden stopping of everything is almost a form of respite,” she explained.
Videos of Italians singing and playing music in solidarity from their balconies went viral around the world in the early weeks of lockdown.
But now, Langbroek said, “It is a grind”.
“The days run together and inexplicably it becomes harder and harder to get out of bed. You try to maintain a routine.
“And the interesting thing about it is how exhausting doing nothing can be.”
Kate and her husband Peter Allen Lewis have been homeschooling their children Lewis, Sunday, Artie and Jan for six weeks and are also trying to work from home.
But besides that, there really wasn’t many ways to spend their time anymore.
“We lie in bed like little gumnut babies just clutching each other’s hands until we fall asleep ready to start it all again the next day,” Langbroek said.
Sharing a message for Australians, Langbroek said while lockdown measures were “not easy”, it was “doable”.
Langbroek and Lewis relocated their family from Melbourne to Italy in early 2019 for what was meant to be a ‘family gap year’, but have extended their stay for another 12 months.
Italy has been one of the nations hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic.
In February, 11 municipalities in northern Italy, identified as the locations of Italy’s main ‘clusters’, were placed under quarantine.
On March 8, the quarantine was expanded to all of Lombardy – where Milan is located – and 14 other northern provinces, and a day later, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the entire country would be locked down, placing more than 60 million people in quarantine.
On March 19, the European nation overtook China as the country with the highest number of confirmed deaths due to the virus.
As of April 7, local time (Wednesday morning AEST), Italy has had 135,586 cases and 17,127 deaths.
Top Comments
Report back when it's been 10 weeks, like China.
So the experience of five weeks shut down (and counting) isn't of interest to Australian viewers, who are yet to experience it at all...?