A man has shared the personal account of an Italian citizen in quarantine and his experiences leading up to the point of lockdown. Jason Yanowitz shared the the citizen’s analysis of the apparent six stages of Italy’s coronavirus fight, and has urged those in the UK to understand the seriousness of the situation.

He said the situation in Italy, which last week saw the country placed in complete lockdown, could become more common in countries around the world.

Mr Yanowitz said of the Italian’s experiences and thesis: “If you’re still hanging with friends, going to restaurants/bars, and acting like this isn’t a big deal, get your s**t together.

“The following threat is taken from an Italian citizen. As they put it “to the rest of the world, you have no idea what’s coming.

“This situation is bad, but I think what’s worse is seeing the rest of the world behaving as if it isn’t going to happen to them. We know what you’re thinking because we were in your place too.”

He then went on to divide the stages up into six through a series of threads.

In the “Stage 1” post, he said: “You know that coronavirus exists and the first cases begin to appear in your country.

“Well, nothing to worry about – it’s just bad flu. I’m not 75+ so what could possibly happen to me?

“I’m safe, everybody is overreacting, what’s the need to go out with masks and stock toilet paper.

“I’m going to live my life as usual, there’s no need to freak out.”

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Then, moving to “Stage 2”, he said: “The number of cases begins to be significant.

“They declare a ‘red zone’ and quarantine one or two small cities where they found the first cases and a lot of people were infected.

“Well that’s sad and somewhat worrisome, but they’re taking care of it so nothing to panic about.

“There are some deaths, but they’re all old people so the media is just creating panic for views, how shameful.

“People lead their life as usual…I’m not going to stop going out and meeting my friends am I?

“It’s not going to get me. Everybody’s fine here.”

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On “Stage 3” includes the point at which cases begin to double every few days as more people come into contact with one another, so on so forth.

He wrote: “The number of cases is rapidly going up. They almost doubled in one day. There’s more deaths.

“They declared red zones and quarantine the 4 regions where the majority of cases are registered.

“In Italy, 25 percent of the population is under quarantine. Schools and universities are closed in these areas, but bars, work places, restaurants and so on are still open. The decree gets released by some newspaper before it should – so abut 10,000 people from the red zone escape the area that same night to return to their homes in the rest of Italy.

“Most of the population of the remaining 75 percent of Italy still does what it always does. They don’t realise the seriousness of the situation.

“Everywhere you turn people advise to wash your hands and limit going out, large groups are forbidden, every five minutes on TV they remind you of the rules.

“But it still hasn’t settled in people’s minds.”

This is the half way point of Italy’s coronavirus narrative, and, if true, it seems Britain is slightly behind the so-called “Stage 3”.

In Stage 4, the number of cases now increase sevenfold, and Mr Yanowitz said: “Schools and universities are closed everywhere for at least a month. It’s a national health emergency. Hospitals are at capacity, entire units are cleared to make space for coronavirus patients.

“There aren’t enough doctors and nurses are getting infected, spreading it to their families.

“There’s too many cases of pneumonia, too many people who need ICU and not enough places for everyone.

“At this point it is like being at war: doctors have to choose who to treat based on their survival chance.

“That means the elderly and trauma/stroke patients can’ get treated because corona cases have priority.”

“Stage 5” is where things escalate and the entirety of Italy is placed under lockdown, which happened on 10 March.

Mr Yanowitz wrote: “The goal is to delay the spreading of the virus as much as possible.

“People can’t go to work, do grocery shopping, go to the pharmacy, and all businesses are open because otherwise the economy would collapse, but you can’t move from your commune unless you have a valid reason.

“Now there’s fear, you see a lot of people with masks and gloves around but there are still people who think they are invincible, who go to restaurants in large groups, hang out with friends to drink and so on.”

At “Stage 6”, he said: “It’s announced that all (most) businesses are closed. Bars, restaurants, shopping centres, all kinds of shops.

“Everything except supermarkets and pharmacies.

“You can move around only if you have certification with you. Certification is an official document where you declare your name, where you’re coming from, where you’re going and what for. There are a lot of check points.

“If you’re found outside without a valid reason you risk a fine up to 206 euros.”

It is a difficult narrative to pinpoint considering some measures from all of the stages have already been advised or implemented – yet other measures in the stages are yet to be seen in the UK.

Many were quick to criticise the thread of tweets, accusing Mr Yanowitz of stirring up fear and potentially amplifying the issues of stockpiling and panic buying.

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