ROME (AP) – From its newsstand at the bottom of two hilly streets in Rome, Armando Alviti has been sharing the excitement for newspapers, magazines and locals almost every evening for more than half a century.
“CEO, Armando,” his clients greet him as part of their routine. “Kiao, Amor (love)” he recalls. V Lviti recounted how when he was young, newspaper distributors would take his parents’ newsstands for a spin by putting them in an empty basket on their motorbikes.
Since he turned 18, Alviti has run the Newsstand seven days a week, with an ool’s tweed cap and a tablet fan to keep him cool during the winter months in the Italian capital. So when the coronavirus arrived in Italy and his two grown sons insisted that V1 and Diabetes Alvity advise him to stay home, they risked their jobs to keep the newsstand open.
“They were afraid I would die. I know they love me crazy. ”
During an epidemic, health authorities around the world have stressed the need to protect people at risk from complications from COVID-19, a group that quickly releases information on infections and mortality, including the elderly. With 23% of the population aged 65% or older, Italy is the world’s oldest population after Japan at 28%.
The average age of those who die from COVID-19 in Italy is about 80, many of them people with previous medical conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. Some politicians advocated limiting how much time the elders spent outside their homes to avoid a general population lockdown that is costly to the economy.
Among them was the governor of Liguria on Italy’s northwest coast, where 28.5 percent of the population is 65 years of age or older. Giovanni Totti, a 52-year-old government official, argued for such an age-specific strategy when there was another increase in the population in Italy.
Totti said older people are “for the most part in retirement, not indispensable to productive efforts” in Italy’s economy.
To the news vendor in Rome, those were the fighting words. “I’m offended by Toti’s remarks,” Alviti said. They made me very angry. ”
“Older people are the lifeblood of this country. They are the memory of this country, ”he said. Self-employed older adults like him in particular cannot be kept under a “jar of llnt,” he said.
Older people, especially in nursing homes, are more commonly referred to as “elderly” because of the extreme response to epidemics to strengthen aging or prejudice against the population sector.
Nancy Moro-Howell, a professor of social work at St. Louis and Washington University, specializes in “astrology.” She notes that these days, people in their 60s always take care of their parents in the 90s.
“Agism is therefore acceptable … it is not questioned,” Moro-Howell said in a telephone interview. “We need to protect the elderly,” said Moro-Howell. We need to treat them like children. ”
Alviti’s family won the first round, keeping him out of work until May. When the coronavirus returned in the fall, his sons urged him to stay home again.
He compromised. One of his sons opens the newsstand at 6 a.m. and Alviti takes two hours later, limiting his contact with the public during the morning rush.
Fosto Alviti said he was scared for his father, “but I also realize he stays home, he would be mentally bad. He needs to be with people.”
At an open-air food market in Rome’s Trulo neighborhood, Domenico Zac Coli, an 80-year-old vendor, also believes retirees are “not producing (and should be protected).”
Before breaking down on a recent rainy day, Zucchini had transformed his stall into a cheerful array of colors: boxes of red and green cabbage, radishes, purple carrots, leafy lettuce tops, and white, violet and orange peels. About 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from his farm.
“Older people should do as they see fit. If they can’t walk, they don’t walk. If I feel like running, I will run, “said Zac Koli. After packing his stall at 1:30 p.m., he said he would work many more hours in his field, leaving for lunch.
Marco Trabucci, a psychiatrist who specializes in the behavior of older adults in the excellent Italian city of Brescia, thinks the epidemic has gotten people to better reconsider their attitudes.
“Little attention was paid to the personality of the elderly. They were like a vague class, with all the same, all the same problems, all the sufferings, ”said Tarbuchi.
In Italy, childcare centers have long been rare, with the number of elderly adults, several decades after retirement, effectively doubling as essential workers in caring for their grandchildren.
According to the European Union’s statistics bureau, Eurostat, 35% of Italians over the age of 65 care for grandchildren several times a week.
Felice Santini, 79, and his wife, Rita Cintio, 76, are one such couple. They take care of the youngest of their four grandchildren several times a week.
“If we hadn’t taken care of them, their parents wouldn’t have been able to work,” Santini said. “We’re helping them (a son and daughter-in-law) into a productive workforce.”
Santini still works manually, has a half day as a mechanic at an auto toe repair shop. Then, when he gets home, his hands are busy in the kitchen: filling homemade kennels from sausage, making meat sauce and making orange-flavored bundt cakes for his grandchildren.
Sintio finds it painful not to be able to hug and kiss her grandchildren. The girl embraced 9-year-old Gaia Santini when her grandmother navigated the narrow streets of Rome to pick her up at school. Cintio will take Gaia home for a break, before heading out for an ice-skating lesson with him.
Concerned about the second outbreak of COVID-19, the couple’s son, Cristiano Santini, said he tried to limit the frequency with which his parents watched the children, but to no avail.
“They are scared (of infection), but because of their age and the loss of time with their grandchildren, they are more afraid of not living longer,” he said.
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