An Italian Saga of Quarantine to Quarantine

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- In late January, entrepreneur Ermanno Vitali, 41, decided he would leave Nanjing, China, with his Chinese wife and two of his three daughters and return to his central Italian hometown of Monterubbiano. The novel coronavirus was already spreading in and beyond Wuhan, about 335 miles from Nanjing, and the long Chinese New Year’s holiday would be a good time to sit out the outbreak in his native land. After two weeks of quarantine at the behest of Chinese authorities, he and his family flew off to Italy where they would join his third daughter, who lived near Monterubbiano with Vitali’s parents and attended school there.

He didn’t get the welcome he expected from his hometown. Within days of his return, news of the Vitalis’s return from China spread like wildfire in WhatsApp groups and among the parents of his daughter’s classmates. The walls, bus stops, and schools of Monterubbiano were plastered with anonymous messages warning the local population to stay away from the family. “They came back secretly from China, the Vitalis, without notifying the authorities,” read the notices, which had been handwritten and photocopied. “They are dangerous.”

“As soon as we arrived, a hunt for ‘plague-spreaders’ started,” he says, using a term familiar to Italians from their school days. The classic 19th century novel The Betrothed recounts a plague in Milan in the 17th century. As contagion spreads, the terrified population starts looking for untori, or plague-spreaders, on whom to vent their anger. In a memorable scene in the book, a mob exacts summary justice on a suspected untore.

Vitali, chief executive officer of the Chinese branch of Faam, an Italian battery maker, is well aware of the complicated feelings Italians have for China. He’s witnessed how China’s rise in the past 20 years created opportunity and hostility in one of Europe’s most fragile economies. As many Italians see it, competition from China’s manufacturers since the late 1990s contributed to the country’s slow economic decline. At the same time, China has been a boon for Italian exporters—from Prada to Ferrari to hundreds of smaller companies like Faam. Italian consumers also spend billions of euros on Chinese-made goods such as smartphones and toys.

But the animosity has been simmering, with occasional flare-ups of anti-Chinese demonstrations in cities such as Prato, near Florence, and Milan, home to large Chinese immigrant communities. The outbreak of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, helped bring the anger into the open. Luca Zaia, governor of the Veneto region and a member of the anti-migrant League party, said the virus spread in China because it lacks a culture of hygiene and food safety compared to Europe. “We have all seen them eat live rats or other stuff,” he said in a TV interview, only to apologize some days later in a letter to the Chinese ambassador in Rome.

In Monterubbiano, the Vitalis decided to self-quarantine again, pulling their daughter from school and avoiding social contact, even though at the time the Italian government was imposing no restrictions on returnees from China. No other incident occurred, and the family joined the local Carnevale festivities in late February. “Even if someone doesn’t love us,” Vitali says, “Most of the town does.”

Still, the posters had shaken the family. Vitali decided to return to Nanjing with his wife and all three daughters in early March. He thought the timing might be opportune for his business: a competitor in Wuhan was struggling amid the containment. However, by then Italy had become the epicenter of the contagion in Europe. The Chinese authorities, fearful that the contagion would return just as it appeared to be getting under control, informed the family they would have to undergo yet another quarantine. In an additional twist, Vitali’s plans to expand his business were hampered by Italian measures that threw snags into that end of his supply chain.

“It’s kind of ironic to be pushed back from China after what happened in my hometown,” Vitali said with a laugh a few days before his scheduled departure. “But maybe we can learn a lesson. I hope that fear can bring us all together.” There was one final hurdle: on March 9, Italy imposed a nationwide quarantine—but the Vitalis made it out two days later.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net

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