Rome (CNN) For months, Italy has had the most coronavirus-related deaths of any country in the world, and Cremona, a province in Italy's north, has been particularly hard hit. Beppe Severgnini, a veteran Italian journalist and author, lives in the provincial capital, Crema, where he says he has become accustomed to the sound of ambulance sirens, almost as if he lived in New York.

Severgnini has traveled extensively in the US and lived there as a correspondent for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. He spoke with CNN's Ben Wedeman in Rome via Skype about what he's seeing in both Crema and the United States, a country he says he loves dearly but now finds perplexing in the time of coronavirus.

Q. In your book, "La Bella Figura: An Insider's Guide to the Italian Mind," you wrote that "Authority has been making Italians uneasy for centuries," yet now, with coronavirus, they are largely respecting authority, respecting the rules. Why is that?

A. You can be ill at ease with authority, and respect them. That has been the case for centuries. Think of when we had the Spanish here, the Germans, during the last century. In Italian history, you respect the authorities because you never know, you have to be safe. But on the other hand you are ill at ease. The new thing is that we actually follow the rules. The problem with running Italy is that every single Italian wants to decide whether any rules, regulations, norms, whatever, is actually right for him or for her. Once they've decided, "Yes, after all, it makes sense, fair enough," they follow the rules.

This time the threat is kind of obvious. I'm talking to you from [the town of] Crema. Cremona is the single hardest-hit province in Italy. You hear the sound of ambulances every day, as we have for the last six weeks. Like New Yorkers now probably. You don't really need much to be convinced. And that's why, OK, I think it makes sense to stay at home.

Beppe Severgnini in Milan, Italy, on May 17, 2015.

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