As an all-or-nothing sort of person when it comes to life in general, after two years of a pandemic that currently shows no enthusiasm whatsoever for heading out into that big blue over there, I’m surprised by my newfound love for Compromise.
As I believe that we must get on with our lives – as indeed I am, having put up my sticks and retired to Venice for three months – I am far from sure that it is the answer, throwing all precautions to the winds of Covid.
Here in Italy, their so-called ‘state of emergency’ ends today, but unlike our own U-turn in February, that doesn’t mean that with a wave of the government’s magic wand, all restrictions are now gone. If I go to a restaurant or shop at the weekend, I still have to wear a mask. On public transport and even near the train station or in the little shacks that are the water bus stops along the Grand Canal here in Venice, the mask requirement remains a matter of course.
And when I say masks, I don’t mean trendy, patterned fabric masks that go perfectly with your outfit. No, surprisingly all you see everywhere here in this chic and generally OTT fashion conscious country is the heavy duty FFP2 masks.
While such covers are absolutely mandatory on all public transport, a rule I have enforced on tourists on a few occasions, it seems that the Italians themselves have decided to play it safe and adopt them for general use. In the four weeks since I’ve been here I would not have ventured onto a train or waterbus without a face covering like this. Finding only a patterned fabric “Mascherina” in my bag on my way to a water bus the other day, I went to a store and bought an FFP2 version.
Even with today’s lifting of the state of emergency, masks are apparently not going anywhere.
Neither is what they call the “Green Pass”, their wording for our digital Covid certificates. While this requirement is now being relaxed in some outdoor settings, they still need to be produced indoors (or demonstrate a negative test) for a few weeks; general consensus here is that it will be late May before they are no longer mandatory indoors.
And yes, I said they will be relieved outside Settings because they have to date been demanded there.
I was stunned when I arrived a month ago and pulled into Caffe Rosso in Campo Santa Margherita to sit outside and have a drink in the early evening sun, only to be asked to show my ‘Green Pass’ before I even could could order my Aperol Spritz. Four weeks later it’s still the same.
Who knows how the Covid numbers here will be in the near future with Italy lifting its state of emergency today and the tourist season now in full swing but with regulations relaxed rather than dropped and with everyone I’ve spoken to are still determined to be careful, well maybe this compromise malarkey could actually work.
