Nevada Shirran’s Rotary Exchange experience didn’t have the ending she was hoping for. The Flin Flon student spent the past year in Italy - one of the countries hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
After returning home from Italy and self-isolating for 14 days, she attended a Flin Flon Rotary Club meeting June 18 to share her experiences.
“We first heard about it when it was just getting bad in China,” Shirran said.
“We all went, ‘Oh, that's scary.’... progressively over a few months, it was, ‘Oh, we're okay,’ and then ‘No, we're not.’”
Shirran was staying on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea, away from harder-hit areas in northern Italy. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 on the island was reported March 3 - Manitoba confirmed its first case 10 days later.
“I think they didn't realize how bad it was going to get until it was too late,” Shirran said.
“I think that putting certain provinces and places that weren't too bad into lockdown was smart for the islands and stuff. I think that North America should have taken info from that and put us into lockdown sooner before it got as bad as it did. It's still better here than it was there.”
Nearly 35,000 Italians have died from COVID-19 according to official data. More than 200,000 people there have caught the disease.
“I have friends from Canada who are on exchange and my friend that was in France is still there,” Shirran said.
“Definitely, Italy was worse.”
Shirran presented a slide show of her experiences in Italy at the meeting and shared what the experience of living in a new country was like with Rotary members.
“I’m glad I got to see what I got to see,” she said.
“I’d do it again.”
The planned Rotary Exchange for 2020/21 was cancelled due to COVID-19. Flin Flon student Cherity Odut was scheduled to spend the year in Germany as part of the exchange.
