Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash
This is the makeshift bed made from cardboard boxes an Italian pharmacist is sleeping in so she does not have to go home and risk infecting her elderly mother with coronavirus.
Lucia Carlotta Paoletti, 35, shared the image of where she is sleeping in her pharmacy located in Ballabio, in the northern Italian province of Lecco in the Lombardy region.
The snap shows a mattress in the stock room with large pieces of cardboard surrounding it to protect the pharmacist from the cold temperatures at night.
Newsflash/@max.gialetti 
Newsflash/@max.gialetti 
Newsflash/@max.gialetti
She said: “I sleep in the shop because I do not want to risk infecting my mum, she is old and she lives with me. I love my job and I do it with dedication, but seeing some clients who are underestimating the risks makes my blood boil.”
The pharmacist says she does not want to stop working but urged people to follow the rules, saying “We can only get through this if we all behave properly.”
Paoletti has put up a sign saying: “I remind you that after two cases of people who were positive or in quarantine coming to the pharmacy, everybody not following the rules will be reported.
“We are people not sacrificial lambs, I have been sleeping in the pharmacy for a week and I can say that it is not nice, I would like to go back home and be with people I love but I can’t stand this situation, think about it!”
The photo of the makeshift bed was widely commented on by netizens, such as ‘Mary Invernizzi’ who said: “You are a warrior, stay strong Lucia.”
‘Francesco Gala’ added: “I have read this post and I agree with your anger and fear. Where I live, here in Naples, my pharmacy has put a phone on the door so they do not have any contact with anybody, why don’t you do that too?”
According to the latest figures from the Johns Hopkins University, Italy has registered 143,626 cases of COVID-19, 18,279 deaths and 28,470 recovered.
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