Evina, Anna, Pietro and Giacomo. Milan, Italy

“I have been a pharmacist for 20 years and my work has changed profoundly since the beginning of this pandemic. My family has been at home since February 24, the date of the first of the decrees which implemented progressively more ironclad and extended restriction measures making the city deserted. Since that day I have become ‘dangerous’ for them so much as to try to avoid their hugs, which in those days were the only thing that could give me a smile back. Silence fell suddenly in the city, except for the ambulance sirens. The pharmacy continued to be open every day. They banned going to the hospital, closed the surgeries and they didn’t tell people not to go to the pharmacy, and so we suddenly found ourselves to be one of the trenches in the fight against Covid. We were no longer pharmacists. Suddenly we have become astronauts behind bulkheads, glasses, visors, masks. We became a task force that had to manage people’s fears (in addition to ours), ration the stocks of drugs, sanitizing gels and very few masks that after jumping through hoops they could find them at decent prices. The only thing we have always tried to give without scruple were words of comfort and smiles, even if covered by masks. I don’t feel like a hero, I am one who like many in this period has gone on (fortunately) to do his job, knowing he has even more responsibility “.