Lockdown Diaries | Italy, James Kasunuran

Italy has long been known as a center of culture, art, music, and fashion. Recently, it made headlines for a less savory reason–the COVID-19 pandemic. Though Italy now only ranks second to Spain as having the most number of COVID-19 cases, it still has the most number of COVID-19-related deaths in Europe as of writing. In the year 2000, Italy’s health care system was ranked as the second best in the world by the World Health Organization. But even their lauded health care system was not able to keep up with the mounting number of COVID-19 cases, resulting in a shortage of hospital equipment and cremation facilities. This prompted the Italian government to impose a lockdown last March 9, 2020. According to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, there are 160,000 Filipinos living in Italy, 90% of them employed in the service sector. In #LockdownDiaries, we peek into the day-to-day activities of a kababayan, James Kasunuran, a janitorial firm owner, and learn how he and the Filipino community are facing the pandemic in Milan, Italy.