No one along the streets, no children who play soccer in the public gardens. That’s Codogno, Italy in times of coronavirus disease. It’s a ground zero which sets a great example of how an infection can be defeated.

Only by staying at home, the coronavirus disease spread can be stopped. Citizens cities in the northern Italy which registered the first and powerful spread of coronavirus disease have provided a virtuous example for fellow Italians now facing an unprecedented nationwide lockdown.

Lately, here have been almost 200 infected from coronavirus disease of which 34 have died, in the town of 16,000 located near the Po River about 60 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Milan.

People do not esc their houses, but in case they do, they wear masks to protect themselves. Over three weeks, residents have grown accustomed to their isolation from the world, and from each other. Like in war, there must be very careful. Handshake greetings are replaced with new forms of acknowledgment.

But the masks do not make much difference if people do not respect rules of distance – minimum 1 mt. distance. So while people can no longer attend meetings or dinners with friends and relatives, a local parish radio station has stepped in to partially fill that gap, transmitting mass prayers, along with bulletins from the civil protection agency and messages from the mayor.The coronavirus disease affected life and it is difficult to defeat.

Trains no longer stop at the station. No one is going anywhere, anyway. And shops for non-essentials are closed. Codogno is like a haunted city, now. But the Mayor, Francesco Passerini is optimistic. “It is a war. It is a war, but we have every possibility of winning”.

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