Italians believe the coronavirus outbreak shows their superiority

During times of contagion, you begin to understand why fascist salutes were once so popular. The foot-tap is replacing the handshake in parts of China. Here in Italy, which has far more cases of coronavirus than any countries except China, Iran and South Korea, a left-wing government is telling Italians not to shake hands. It reminds me of 1922, when Mussolini came to power after the first world war had killed 20 million and the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 at least as many again. The Duce replaced the handshake with the Roman salute. The handshake, according to fascist ideology, had to go because it was unhygienic and bourgeois. The connection Mussolini made between the power of the hand to infect the human body and the power of the bourgeoisie to infect the body politic is fascinating. The saluto romano distanced his supporters from the fascist class enemy — above all non-productive members of the middle-class whom they regarded as parasites — or viruses, to bring things up to date.

I live in the Emilia-Romagna, the Italian region with the largest number of people infected after the epicentre in Lombardy. I have six children, all of whom — bar the youngest, Giuseppe, who is four — go to school. Thanks to the coronavirus they are cock-a-hoop because this is the second week that the schools have been closed. So my children are at home 24/7. In the past ten days, since they have not been at school, most of them have had flu (colds with a high temperature) and I, aged 60, have had a nasty cold, though no temperature. My Italian wife has had both, and blames me, of course. Am I worried that we are beccato (pecked) by the Chinese virus? No. The young survive it come what may, as I am sure will my much younger wife, their mother.