Coronavirus in Ballarat: Committee for Ballarat chief Melanie Robertson discusses life in Italy

This was move to delve right into a foreign country and culture, experiencing what makes the heart of a community on the other side of the world. All the seemingly everyday things to make connections - school, Pilates, language class - are on hold. Popular tourist destination, like the Amalfi Coast are deserted. People are wary and concerned as coronavirus preventative measures take hold.

But what Melanie has found is a strong resilience in a community handling the crisis together. There is a respect for leaders in authority during this time of crisis that Melanie is uncertain would prevail if Australia was in the same situation.

Melanie shares her experience with The Courier reporter MELANIE WHELAN.

Home for six months is a small hill top village, Civitella D'Agliano. It is home to about 2000 people and is located about 100 kilometres north of Rome on the Lazio/Umbrian border. We settled here in January after travelling throughout France, Germany, Hungary, Czech and Austria.

It has always been a strong desire of my partner to spend considerable time abroad and to immerse ourselves in the culture, integrate into the community and have something outside of the normal tourism experience. We simply asked ourselves why not, why can't we do this, and we quickly realised that we could.

For us it represents an opportunity to step outside our comfort zone, and to truly engage and live life in another country for a short period of time. The timing was perfect with the age of our children at school and we knew that this opportunity would not present itself for quite a few more years.

It is a gap year in our 40s and we know that when we return home to Ballarat our lives will be enriched for the experience and we will bring back the learnings of the past 12 months to our workplaces and community. I'm relishing the everyday experiences and learning just how the community functions.

What attracted us to experience Italy in a small village was to find out more and experience the sense of community, the laid back but sometimes chaotic lifestyle. It feels strange chaos and disorder is part of their culture and lifestyle but the level of compliance in the midst of a crisis was not what we expected.

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This experience of being in lock down certainly isn't the experience we had planned for but there is no option except to comply and remain positive for our time ahead. More importantly, we remain positive that Italy recovers as well as the rest of the world. Its fascinating to see what can be done when people come together for a united purpose. It is certainly a point that I have reflected upon.

There is an eerie mood around and it is difficult to articulate in words. Everywhere is quiet everywhere and there feels a sense of loss. There is a mood of deep concern but not despair. There is a high level of patriotism and a strong desire to do the right thing to protect families, to protect the economy and protect Italy. It is remarkedly calm. Everyone is extremely respectful and has a level of admiration of the government's decision.

Initially there was a mood of confusion and disbelief but now people are faced with the reality and they fully understand the situation requires a whole of country approach. They are willing to play their part.

There is a level of sadness this situation has occurred in their country and they are deeply apologetic for it. This includes the local police who are strongly enforcing the restrictions. We had the experience of being confronted by the police three times within 30 minutes, being told to quickly move on and return to our own country.

It is being described as an emergency situation and every effort is being put in place to ease this. It is very serious and people are reacting to this by showing a level of respect and compliance that I am not sure would occur in Australia.

Sadness for the situation.

Uncertainty of the future and what it will mean for them personally and for Italy.

Respect for the decrees put in place.

They are very cautious.

There is a strong feeling of unease.

Travel restrictions do not impact the local community significantly as they live their lives within their community. Family and friends live within the community. But, the closing of restaurants, the closure of bars and schools equates to lack of social interactions - this is what makes these communities. It's hard to believe weddings and funerals are cancelled throughout the country.

There is a level of paranoia among people that is being fed from fear. An example is the local school was to go to Rome on an excursion prior to the restrictions and every family apart from ours said they did not wish their child to attend.

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The Italians certainly appears to have a high level of confidence in the health system although they are acutely aware they only have within their system 10 per cent of the ICU (Intensive Care Medicine) beds that they anticipate will be required to cope with the level of infection seen, as well as the severity.

Italy has an aging population with 22 per cent of the population over 65 years of age. They have concerns as the system has not been set up to deal with an emergency of this magnitude.

I certainly feel very safe in relation to the corona virus and have no concerns for our own health. The economic and social impact is of significant concern to the country and the people. The economy will not cope with this level of disruption.

Information is a little hard to come by due to my limited language skills and I have been reliant upon social media and international news. Decisions are being made and they are acted upon swiftly. We had found ourselves trapped down in the south when the lock downs were imposed in the north thinking travel could still occur but overnight decisions were made, the situation changed and we were forced to return home.

I have a certain level of anxiousness about what is happening and what will happen as far as controls imposed in the future and throughout Europe. After a skiing mishap I was booked in for surgery on my leg in Austria on March 13 but this has been cancelled due to the borders being closed. Our children who are attending local school are no longer able to attend and are being home schooled. The local gym has closed as well as my local community Pilates class. I haven't been able to commence language or cooking classes.

Although very minor inconveniences in the overall scheme of things, the experience of participating in these activities has been about integrating myself into the community and making connections. This has been very difficult as people are very cautious and deeply concerned.

One daughter is very concerned she may miss out on the Harry Styles concert in May - she isn't really seeing the big picture in this crisis. We have family and friends planning on visiting us throughout the year and those plans are up in the air - but these are minor issues compared to the impact of businesses within the country and particularly the hospitality and tourism sectors.

I am very sympathetic to the people whose daily lives are being so severely impacted.

We have good access to supplies, so we have no concerns at this stage and anticipate that this may change due to the border controls introduced. But there does not appear to be panic buying and people are very respectful and self-less in this situation.

Has there been any media on Australia's toilet roll crisis/shortage? What is your perspective from afar?

I have certainly heard about the toilet paper crisis in Australia through social media and have yet to make sense of it. The only item in high demand in Italy is face masks. It all seems nonsensical compared to the seriousness of the issue.

I think the people of Italy have a better idea of the bigger picture and are doing what they can for the overall benefit of the country. The self sacrifice is evident, the change of behaviour phenomenal.

The most passionate, affectionate and social people on this planet are practicing self-isolation and refraining from being closer than one metre to each other in all circumstances.

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