Over the past two months, many of the videos and images coming out of Italy have been hard to stomach.

The country’s citizens, and especially those in the northern regions, were among the first to be placed under lockdown, and it wasn’t long before they were singing from their balconies as a form of solidarity.

Props to all those here at home who join in at 8PM to clap, and shout, as a way of thanking South Africa’s essential workers, who risk their lives daily so that we are looked after.

We salute our heroes on the frontline, and that includes people working in supermarkets, manning the tills and stocking the shelves, and everybody who leaves the house each day to make sure a certain need is met.

The data suggests that our early and decisive action to combat the spread of COVID-19 has been effective thus far, but Italy didn’t have the luxury of learning from the mistakes of others.

At present, more than 21 000 people have died, with more than 160 000 confirmed cases across the country.

VICE News’ Senior Correspondent Isobel Yeung recently travelled to the epicentre of Italy’s outbreak, the Lombardy region, and spent a shift with EMTs and other healthcare workers.

If you want to know what a hospital overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases looks like, and why it’s so essential that we buy ourselves time to adequately prepare, this should do the trick:

[source:vice]