An Indian novelist \u2013 Janice Pariat \u2013 wrote on her Facebook page on Wednesday that she was stranded in Rome amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, with little help from the Indian embassy. She wanted to return to India, but had little information available.<\/p>\n
\u201cStranded in Rome \u2013 with little help from the Indian embassy here who have been mostly unresponsive. They\u2019ve \u201csuspended embassy services\u201d due to the virus outbreak. News from home tells us that apparently a medical team is meant to fly out from India to conduct tests as Italy\u2019s overstretched health providers are only testing people who are showing symptoms,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Italy has been hit most after China by Coronavirus or COVID-19, and there have been 631 deaths from it. Over 10,000 people have tested positive, and streets are deserted all over the country with complete lockdown with the government asking people to not travel or leave home.<\/p>\n
Pariat had earlier written about her inability (which other Indians in Rome faced as well) to board the Alitalia flight to New Delhi because the embassy had issued directives that they needed documents to show they were not infected by COVID-19. But doctors there were unable to give them the required certificate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been harrowing \u2013 hours of trying to make calls, being given multiple numbers, and conflicting information. And, of course, no compensation in sight\u2026 Home feels terribly far away,\u201d she wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n
[Photograph of Janice Pariat\/Facebook]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She appealed for help on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":8838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[192,246,353,162],"tmauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nation","8":"tag-coronavirus","9":"tag-coronavirus-in-india","10":"tag-italy","11":"tag-social-media"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8837"},{"taxonomy":"tmauthors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebengalstory.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tmauthors?post=8837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}