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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

How Italy has changed in two years of the Covid-19 pandemic

It's been two years since the first Covid-19 lockdowns were declared in Italy and life was irrevocably altered in a range of ways; some obvious, some subtle. The Local's journalists look at what's changed about life in the country since late February 2020.

How Italy has changed in two years of the Covid-19 pandemic
A woman waves the Italian flag in May 2020 at the end of Italy’s first Covid lockdown. Photo: Miguel MEDINA / AFP

It may be hard to believe, but two full years have now passed since Italy began to lock down towns in northern Italy after Europe’s first known outbreaks of coronavirus were confirmed.

By early March 2020, Italy had become the first Western country to declare a nationwide lockdown.

In the intervening two years, Italy has been through a lot – and we think it’s fair to say that the country will never be quite the same again.

Not all of the changes are negative, however.

As we look ahead to the gradual easing of Italy’s remaining restrictions and the return of a more normal life in the coming weeks and months, here’s a look at some of the ways in which Italian culture and society has changed.

Less kissing, more personal space

Is the famous Italian two-kiss greeting gone for good?

While you might still give a close friend or a family member a little peck on the cheek, gone are the days where you’d stand in a circle knocking jowls with people you’d met just moments before.

In fact, the concept of personal space in general is now better understood and more widely practiced in Italy than it ever was in the past – whether it concerns touching between acquaintances, or crowding at the post office.

READ ALSO: Eight things the Covid crisis has taught us about Italy

That’s not to say people are now keeping their distance at all times. But generally speaking, in public spaces most people are still keen to avoid pressing up against one another even in situations where social distancing is no longer really monitored.

This means ticketing systems have in many areas replaced queues – and where they do exist, lines are far more likely to be respected, with healthy gaps maintained between the people forming them.

A sign reminds people to observe distancing measures at a cinema in Rome – The sight of people forming an orderly, distanced queue is no longer unusual in Italy. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP

This new awareness of and respect for personal space will be a striking difference for anyone returning to Italy for the first time since the pandemic began.

If you weren’t a fan of touchy-feely Italian behaviour before, no doubt this will come as a relief – while those who enjoyed these affectionate customs may find this a sad development.

Life in Italy is becoming (a bit) more digital.

We wouldn’t go as far as to describe it as a digital revolution, but the pandemic has certainly accelerated Italy’s adoption of online processes.

This is still Italy we’re talking about, and digital is by no means king – but it’s made some noticeable strides in the last two years.

If you need a document from your comune, or town hall, you can now in most cases access it for free online rather than having to block out an entire afternoon to go in person to collect a copy.

People are also much more amenable to the idea of checking – and answering – emails than was the case pre-pandemic, when nothing less than a phone call (ideally followed up by an in-person meeting) would get you any attention.

READ ALSO: How Italy has made it easier to access essential paperwork online

Similarly, more information is also now made available online, whereas before you may have been expected to go to an office in person to get even the most mundane questions answered.

You’re also more likely now to be offered the option of paying by contactless card, even for smaller sums, where cash is traditionally preferred.

This is not only due to people preferring card transactions amid the pandemic for hygiene reasons: the Italian government has introduced a number of measures within the past two years to encourage (and in some cases require) electronic payments, as part of a push to crack down on widespread tax evasion.

Take-out is much more widely available

While a good number of restaurants in Italy’s major towns and cities offered takeaway food and drinks before the pandemic, this is now standard all over the country.

Some places even got creative, offering to deliver pre-packaged, par-cooked box meals you could easily finish at home with the help of online videos.

Realising that the big delivery companies were taking a significant chunk of their profit, a few establishments set up their own delivery systems (if you want to order from somewhere, it’s worth calling them directly first to check whether they offer this).

It’s not just restaurants that have expanded their take-out offering; home delivery in general is more of an option these days.

If you need to order groceries to your house, for example, more supermarkets now let you book a slot online without too much hassle.

This has been a major change for people in smaller towns and more rural parts of the country, where ordering food and drink – particularly coffee – to take away was previously seen as somewhat unusual and undesirable.

Getting your cappuccino to go is now commonplace, even in parts of Italy where this was previously unheard of, and you might even be asked which you prefer when you make your order.

Although whether or not your coffee tastes just as good from a takeout cup is another question – one we know many Italians will have an opinion on.

E-scooter and e-bike craze

Foreign visitors coming to any Italian city after a two-year hiatus are liable to be immediately struck by one thing: Italy has whole-heartedly climbed aboard the monopattino (scooter) revolution wagon.

When the country started to reopen after the first wave of Covid, people looked for ways to travel around their city without being crammed into poorly-ventilated buses and trams, and app-controlled motorised scooters (and bikes) offered themselves up as the answer.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about Italy’s electric scooter craze

Electric scooters have become a common sight on the streets of Rome since 2020. Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP

While a switch to bikes and scooters were already fairly popular in other parts of Europe, Italy had remained stubbornly reliant on cars as the main mode of transportation, including in large cities.

The sudden onset of Italy’s electric scooter fever was fueled in 2020 by the government’s offer (now expired) of up to 500 euros towards the purchase price of a brand new e-bike or scooter for residents of Italian cities.

Street corners quickly became littered with discarded scooters, and pedestrians were suddenly imperiled by riders whizzing by on pavements at 25 km/h – problems which the government has since tried to resolve (with varying degrees of success) by introducing new laws to regulate this brave new mode of transportation.

Returning visitors might also notice that additional bike and scooter lanes have popped up in some cities to accommodate this extra traffic.

Construction and renovation boom

Policies brought in to support Italy’s economic recovery from the pandemic have prompted a (small-scale) construction boom.

It’s not the kind you’ll notice wandering the streets, however, as we’re talking less about erecting skyscrapers than about private homeowners earthquake-proofing their walls and putting solar panels on their roofs, as well as in some cases embarking upon rebuilding and renovation projects.

In May 2020, the government launched its ‘superbonus‘ home improvement and renovations scheme, which promised homeowners a tax deduction of up to 110 percent of the cost of making energy upgrades and reducing seismic risk. 

Unsurprisingly, this prompted a surge in demand that Italy’s building companies have been unable to meet.

READ ALSO: Which of Italy’s building bonuses have been extended into 2022?

Construction firms, engineers and surveyors reported being overwhelmed by the sheer number of enquiries about the offer – many of which come to nothing once homeowners discovered that few people are eligible for the full 110 percent rebate.

Significant savings are still possible, though, and many property owners did go ahead with renovations – often only to face long delays to their projects.

Despite these problems, the policy has had the desired effect of boosting the country’s sluggish economy, with its construction sector recording investments of more than €9 billion under the scheme by November 2021.

The building ‘superbonus’ and ‘ecobonus’ schemes are still available in 2022, along with various other tax incentives for homeowners planning a renovation.

And despite the pandemic’s shake-up of the property market, house prices in Italy actually rose during 2021 overall, while a government scheme (that runs until June 30th, 2022) to help first-time buyers under the age of 36 purchase a house enabled many young Italians to leave their parental home for the first time.

Italy’s population crisis has worsened

Italy has long had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, and the situation has only been worsened by the coronavirus crisis.

In 2020 the Italian population shrank by almost 400,000 — roughly the size of the city of Florence — as deaths peaked, births fell to a new record low, and immigration slowed.

Many blame the ongoing birthrate crisis at least partially on the sluggish economy, the rising cost of living, and lack of financial support available for new parents.

In response, the Italian government has vowed to give more support to women and families and has since begun offering various forms of child support for the first time. In 2022, the government  introduced a universal single allowance.

Have you noticed any other changes to life in Italy which are not mentioned in this article? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Member comments

  1. With the uncertainties surrounding the Madman in Moscow, March 2022 feels in many ways like March 2020.

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OPINION AND ANALYSIS

OPINION: Foreign foods will always be hard to find in Italy – and that’s OK

Italian food is a major part of the draw for Italy's foreign residents, though some find there's a lack of other choices. But Italy is never going to be the kind of globalised country where international dining options are the norm, argues Silvia Marchetti.

OPINION: Foreign foods will always be hard to find in Italy - and that's OK

Globalisation means that even Italians can buy American-style products in its supermarkets such as peanut butter (I’m a fan), tacos, Doritos, and Oreo cookies. However foreigners in Italy often complain that they have a hard time finding American, British and other non-native foods – particularly outside of big cities.

There may be a handful of villages where immigration to the UK occurred which new have bistros and bakeries serving British dishes and foods. But otherwise, non-Italian restaurants such as Mexican, Lebanese and Vietnamese are nowhere to be found in rural, less populated areas.

Milan is one thing but a tiny village in rural Basilicata is entirely different.

Foreigners come to Italy for the great food, but in the long run, particularly for foreign residents always eating the same indigenous cuisine, no matter how divine it is, it can sometimes get boring. Tastebuds get numb after just so many years of eating pizza, amatriciana pasta and lasagne or tortellini.

I never thought any foreigner could get bored of eating Italian cuisine, but I’ve met several people who have and complain about the non-variety of restaurants.

Outside big cities it is hard to find non-Italian food, especially American and Indian for instance. I know several Brits and Americans living in small rural villages in the south who have had enough of the zero availability of other cuisines and are fed up of always eating Italiano.

Ben and Anne Greene, a retired couple from Brighton, relocated to Calabria four years ago where they bought a rural house for less than €40,000 near the village of Cinquefrondi. Given the low prices and cost of living, for the first year they regularly went out for dinner.

“We’ve had more than our fair share of spaghetti with chili peppers and ‘nduja’ (spicy salami) sauce, let alone pizza and all sorts of short pasta”, Anne tells the The Local.

“We love Italian cuisine, and we never thought we would get bored of it, but lately we often really crave what we had back in the UK – that is a wide selection of foreign foods and cuisines.

“We miss having the freedom of opting for Mexican, Indonesian and Indian, around here you can’t even find a real Chinese restaurant unless you drive to the coast.”

In slightly bigger villages near Cinquefrondi there is sometimes a mixed offer of pizza and kebab in bars run by immigrants, but that’s about it, adds her husband.

In Sambuca di Sicilia, for instance, where the one-euro homes frenzy has lured many expats, alongside traditional taverns there’s just one pizzeria that also makes kebab-style food.

While in Mussomeli, another village in Sicily where cheap homes have attracted foreigners, a local restaurant has started to offer pizza and kebab, and also cheesecake. But that’s usually about as ‘varied’ as it gets in small-town Italy when it comes to food.

In rural Calabria however, one American couple recently opened an American restaurant to cater to local clientele and let them discover original American foods such as Cape Cod-style lobster rolls, onion rings and chicken wings.

Shannon Sciarretta and her partner Felipe da Silva launched ‘The Fig’ in the unknown village of Santa Domenica Talao.

Shannon has Italian origins and grew up eating Italian iconic dishes, but when she then spent her university years in Rome, she realised how very little availability there was of other cuisines, even in the Eternal City.

“It just struck me how there’s very little variety available in Italy when it comes to foreign foods or cuisines,” she says.

“So the idea of serving in Italy non-traditional stuff was always on my mind, and when we decided to move to Calabria, we thought it would be great to have locals taste our favourite American dishes because I think cuisine is a means of communication between different cultures”, says Shannon.

In fact, nearly all The Fig’s clientele is native, as villagers have been won over by its US-style cuisine.

I understand how foreigners can get bored eating always the same Italian food, but on the other hand, I am glad that Italy in its entirety is not yet such a globalized, cosmopolitan country where you can find Indonesian or Mexican food anywhere.

We like to stay attached to our local culinary traditions, which I hope will not die out easily.

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