I spoke to my cousins in Italy this week and last. They are confined to their homes and subject to $400 fine and up to three years in prison if they dare go outside for anything but the essentials such as food or medical care. They're being compliant, and hoping for the best.

I am a proud Italian-American, for lack of a better term. Both sets of my grandparents came from Southern Italy. When I first started visiting my wonderful long-lost Italian cousins about 20 years ago, I soon discovered Italians are not like Italian-Americans, or any Americans for that matter. I was shocked at how compliant they are with government restrictions and taxation. Also, their political correctness was shocking to me. One shocking act of political correctness and virtue-signaling you may have missed happened about a month and a half ago, at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in China and Italy.

China owns a lot of Italy and most of its valuable commodities, so there is frequent travel between China and Milan, the business hub of Italy. So when word of COVID-19 was spreading in China and beyond, the virtue ignaling mayor of Florence Italy took to twitter to tell everyone to "hug a Chinese." His aim was to show the world how not racist he and his city are. Fast forward 45 days and we can't imagine a more bone-headed move.

Can we now put "virtue signaling" and politically correct pandering on the list of deadly pandemics sweeping the globe? We've always known it dangerous and stupid, but didn't realize how deadly. It's rampant in Europe and has certainly spread widely throughout North America. The one continent where it's almost non-existent and threatens very few is Asia, especially China.

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