MY LONG WEEKS IN EUROPE'S VERY FIRST LOCKDOWN

FEW had any idea what to expect from Europe’s first lockdown.

- Sally Lockwood

Those living it, those of us reporting it. It was uncharted territory.

When I answered the call to cover the story I wouldn’t have imagined I’d be flying home seven weeks later – or that I’d be flying out of one lockdown and straight into another.

I posted a picture from the airport as I left Italy and one message from a viewer sticks in my mind. “We all feel traumatized,” one woman in Tuscany wrote, “It’s so hard to explain but it feels like the end of an era for us. You were with us from day one.”

By day one she means day one of the strict nationwide lockdown. Two months ago. Before Italy lost tens of thousands of its citizens.

Before its churches became temporary morgues. Before its military were called in to transport the dead. Before it lost more than 180 of its doctors and nurses to Covid-19. It’s understandable she felt traumatised.