Delta Variant Risks Spoiling Europe’s Hope of a Return to Normality

The three women were enjoying their time together, having lunch near the beach at Capalbio on the Southern Tuscan coast just over an hour’s drive from Rome. A long winter and spring of lockdowns and restrictions in their northern alpine town of Bolzano had kept grandmother, mother and daughter apart for months on end.

“Can I tell them how you are the brightest in your class, the most beautiful and the kindest?” the grandmother asked her 17-year-old granddaughter. “The lockdowns were hard — I didn’t see them for months on end. At least I have a beautiful view of the mountains from my apartment, but it was hard. I live alone,” she added. Now reunited, the three generations of women were delighted to be sharing each other’s company once again on a vacation they hope will exorcise the ghost of the pandemic past. Italy’s coastal beaches are now packed again — so too are the lake shores — with vacationers breathing a sigh of relief at their escape from pandemic confinement.