Italy saw the first major outbreak of Covid outside Asia. As the cases spiked, its world-famous tourist sites were plunged into silence.

When the Covid-19 pandemic spread, it was Italy that saw the first serious outbreak outside Asia.

In late January 2020, Italy recorded its first cases of Covid, when two Chinese tourists visiting Rome tested positive for the disease. By the end of the month, the Italian authorities stopped all air travel to China and declared a state of emergency. Clusters of cases which appeared in the northern provinces of Lombardy and Veneto, however, it soon showed that the measures were too late.

In the first weeks of the Covid pandemic, Italy emerged as the worst-hit country outside China. Case numbers climbed and local lockdowns began. The first death was reported on 22 February in Lombardy. Days later, there were Covid patients reported in every region of the country.

On 9 March, the Italian authorities announced all sporting events in the football-mad country were on hold. By the end of the day the situation had worsened to the point that prime minister Giuseppe Conte told Italians the local restrictions would be introduced across the entire country. Nearly every commercial enterprise other than supermarkets and pharmacies were told to close their doors.

Italy – all of Italy – was under lockdown.

Italian photojournalist Laura Lezza says the change from almost normal everyday life to lockdown was almost unbelievably swift. Over a Zoom call from her house, she holds up a photocopy of the front page of the national newspaper La Repubblica, which reads: "Tutti a casa!" ("Everyone stay home!"). Lezza says Italy, the country that bore the brunt of Covid's first surge through Europe, had to adapt from day to day. "We just had China as an example," she says, "but China didn't really show us anything." Lezza says she believes the trauma from being the first Western nation to have to deal with a major outbreak of Covid was something Italy has still not properly processed.

"So when we arrived at the 10th of March, when everyone was at home… suddenly it was like a kind of war. I remember the morning, the very first day, I got up and we went with my husband to have breakfast in a bar near my house. And I said, 'Let's go and see what the end of the world looks like.' There were very few people about, just those that could go out for work. And what really impressed me was to see at the end of the street a supermarket, and the people were queuing like on a........

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