Tough Fronts

Students study on the street in Turin, Italy due to school closures imposed by the government as a response to a surge in COVID-19 cases. Photo: Alessandro Di Marco/EPA.

Penny Lane

A teacher holds her lesson on public steps to help social distance her students in Naples, Italy, after the region of Campania closed schools due to pandemic concerns. A writing on the wall (right, bottom) says: “Autism isn’t contagious — ignorance is”. Photo: Ciro de Luca/Reuters.

Classroom management

Female students attend class after schools reopened in Herāt, Afghanistan in a trial following months of closure due to COVID-19 pandemic. Photo: Jalil Rezayee/EPA.

Hair in the Way

Haircut in the time of pandemic. Drawing by 钟军勇 (Zhōng Jūnyǒng), teacher from 漕河 (Cáohé), 蕲春县 (Qíchūn County), graduated from 湖北美术学院 (Húběi Institute of Fine Arts), and member of 湖北省美术家协会 (Húběi Artists Association).

Wind chimes

Children, who have missed their online classes due to a lack of Internet facilities, maintain a safe distance as they listen to pre-recorded lessons over loudspeakers after schools were closed following the coronavirus outbreak, in Dandwal village in the western state of Maharashtra, India. Photo: Prashant Waydande/Reuters.

Public Schools in Hard Times

Protesters gather for the National Day of Resistance Against Unsafe School Reopening on August 3, 2020 in New York City, United States. Schools around the country are struggling to establish safe protocols to bring students back into classrooms. Photo: Bebeto Matthews/AP.

Smart Housing

Sonny Ross is a freelance artist from Manchester, England. For him, the month of March meant, in his words, “Being a self-employed illustrator obviously comes with risks built in. For me, self isolating is nothing new. But when the whole supply chain does the same, suddenly a very busy month becomes an empty one — and rent is still due. It feels like I’ve been fired eight times already this week”. Artwork © Sonny Ross.

Laika

Jackie Ferrentino is an artist from Brooklyn, New York, United States. Last March POLITICO Europe asked her (as well as other artists from around the world) to draw what she was seeing and feeling in isolation. She captioned her drawing, “Everything now has a sense of unreality. Disconnected from friends, family and the outside world, I feel like I’m nowhere even when I’m right here in my apartment, looking out my window”. Artwork © Jackie Ferrentino.

Blowin’ in the Wind

“On March 13, 2020, the last coronavirus patient in 铁岭 (Tiělíng), 辽宁省 (Liáoníng province), China, was discharged from hospital. I was walking on a street with few pedestrians, when a spring breeze suddenly blew, wiping away the mask I had worn for a long time”. Caption and photo: 桥窝居士 (Qiáoāo Jūshì).

A Day in the Life

Italian schools finally reopened today to welcome about 500,000 students due to undergo the oral “physical” test of their matura exam. Indeed, schools in Italy have been closed since March 5 over pandemic concerns, and the academic year could be saved only through online classes — which however were not accessible to everyone. That’s why no one will fail the exam. And that’s why at least the last day of the school term is a post-apocalyptic solo to be performed in the surreal silence of a deserted amphitheatre amidst masks and costumes. But finally offline.

Screenshot from the film The First Men in the Moon (1919). © British Film Institute. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

In-Between

Five-time World Chess Champion Viswanathan “Vishy” Anand finally returned to India on Saturday after over a three-month stay in Germany due to coronavirus travel shutdown. Anand took an AI120 flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore (via Delhi). He will have to undergo one week of quarantine in the capital of Karnataka, before finally going home to Chennai and serving another two-week quarantine — hopefully his last one for awhile. Nevertheless, it was life. “It has been a very unusual experience for me to be in self-isolation. I interact[ed] with my friends and family on a daily basis. Besides that, I [went] for a nice long walk once or twice a day”, Anand told The Times of India.

Conference Centre

Urinals, with some blocked off to maintain social distancing, on the M20 motorway in Maidstone, Kent, England. Photo: John Sibley/Reuters.

Downtown

Florence, Italy: An Uffizi restorer carries out maintenance work on Sandro Botticelli’s Tondo della Madonna del Magnificat. The Uffizi galleries will not open before May 18. Photo: Laura Lezza/Getty Images.

Metaphors of Confinement

• Anna Bandettini, L’appello di Alessandra Ferri: “Non fateci allenare attaccati ai lavandini” | The appeal of Alessandra Ferri: “Don’t let our bathroom’s sink be a dancer’s barre”, la Repubblica, May 14, 2020

The appeal of Alessandra Ferri: “Don’t let our bathroom’s sink be a dancer’s barre” The ballet étoile hopes that soon dancers will be allowed again to do their rehearsals in the dance halls, even though in compliance with the distance rules and all safety measures: “In order to study safely and competently, we do need parquet floors, barres and mirrors”. [Read more].

The black curtain at last is lifted, revealing a stage behind the bars. Artwork © pionpi.

Frames and Fictions

Dummies replaced audience due to coronavirus at the first professional baseball league game of the season at 桃園國際棒球場 (Táoyuán International Baseball Stadium) in 桃園 (Táoyuán), Taiwan. Photo: 王騰毅 (Ann Wáng)/Reuters.

Two on a Tower

A trader carries his mannequins as he closes his business ahead of lockdown restrictions set by the government in Eastleigh, Nairobi, Kenya. Photo: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters.

The Imaginary

A TV cameraman walks through spectators’ seats which are covered with pictures of fans at the Munhak Baseball Stadium in Incheon, South Korea. Photo: Lee Jin-man/AP.

Take-away

A red fox checks a pizza box on a promenade in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. Red foxes have been making appearances in Ashkelon, drawn out from the seclusion of the desert dunes by the coronavirus lockdown that has kept people off the streets. The animals, usually a rare sight in busy urban areas, have a biblical resonance. In the “Book of Lamentations”, the Jewish temple site in Jerusalem is described as so desolate that “foxes prowl upon it”. In the Mediterranean seaport, a family of foxes has become a regular feature — nosing through discarded food, and playing sometimes unfriendly hide-and-seek with dogs in a local park. Photo: Amir Cohen/Reuters.

午夜快車 (Midnight Express)

Youths remove their mask to record a dance routine on the streets of 武汉 (Wǔhàn), 湖北省 (Húběi province), China, after over two months and half of home confinement due to coronavirus. Photo: Ng Han Guan/AP.

Pulp Fiction

“We must worry about what’s happening in Russia and China, as well as in Hungary. It’s been weeks since authoritarian regimes, even through the pervasive and unscrupulous use of the Internet and fake news, flooded the West with messages questioning the effectiveness of democratic systems in tackling the pandemic. The mantra is always the same: ‘Democratic systems are not able to protect you. Take example from China. Only a strong government can guarantee protection and safety’. This false narrative is as much — if not even more — a threat to Western democracies than the pandemic itself”, 13th World Chess Champion Garry Kimovich Kasparov said in an interview to Gianni Vernetti for La Stampa of April 14, 2020. Photo: La Stampa.