Quarantined Italians recorded messages to their past selves to warn the rest of the world of the consequences that followed from not taking the coronavirus pandemic seriously.
The United States is believed to be roughly ten days behind Italy with regards to the trajectory of the coronavirus crisis.
“We asked people from all around Italy to record a message for themselves ten days ago,” states the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at the beginning of the video.
“I am you in ten days,” said one man.
“I’m speaking to you from the future,” said another.
“A huge mess is about to happen,” warned a third individual.
You can read some of the comments from several of the Italians below:
I’m sure you’ve heard about the coronavirus, and I’m also pretty sure you’re underestimating it.
I even used to make fun of people wearing face masks.
Stop making fun of mom for telling you to buy face masks and go buy them, idiot.
Up until ten days ago, I went to meetings for work, I’d go to dinner with friends, to the gym, to the hairdresser. The usual boring things that never hurt anybody.
But in ten days, life won’t be like this anymore.
The worst case scenario? That’s exactly what will happen.
And now you’re working deadly shifts at the hospital.
We are currently in a surreal situation.
Nobody can leave their house unless they have a very serious reason.
A nice quarantine… the type you only see in movies.
If you must go outside, only do it if indispensable.
Because what you’re risking is not a regular “flu.”
We’ve seen some worrying videos from France and the United States, of people not taking this thing seriously. The issue is more serious than most of the world believes.
What is happening is must worse than you thought it was. You’ll realize that even just being able to breathe the air in your own house — it’s something you should already be grateful for.
At first you’ll feel like you’re going insane, and you won’t see the end of the tunnel.
You’re not alone.
You’ll start seeing beauty and ugliness together.
You’ll live in moments of unity that you never would have imagined, like yesterday, when we all got out on our balconies, and the whole neighborhood started singing. Everyone was singing their own song, but somehow, we were all one thing.
So, start doing your part right away.
Stay at home.
You’re not the only person in this world.
Stay at home.
Earlier this month, an Italian politician accused his colleagues in government of causing a “false alarm” over the coronavirus, which he called “fiction,” stating, “how many people can’t go to work now because of an old man who’s 88 years old, who might have died of the flu?”
This week, the mayor of Bergamo — a city just northeast of Milan in Italy’s worst-infected Lombardy region — said that his city’s crematory is now “unable to dispose of all the work it has to do,” as there have been so many bodies of those who have died due to the Chinese virus.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.