A woman carries shopping bags in Casalpusterlengo on Sunday. Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via AP

Monica Moretti, 46, lives in Casalpusterlengo, a Northern Italian town in the so-called "red zone," where tens of thousands of residents have effectively been cut off from the rest of the country as it works to stop the spread of coronavirus.

It’s the seventh day that she and her 15-year-old daughter have lived under lockdown. Most things are closed, she said, including shops, restaurants, movie theaters, banks and post offices. Only grocery stores and pharmacies remain open.

“I can't move, I can't go to work. It is also just the mental constriction. It is like being imprisoned at home. We can only go out with masks," she told CNN.

She said she feels like she's "in a movie."

"One of those catastrophe‪, contagion‬ movies, where you see the epidemiologists using biohazard weapons and everyone dies. In 24 hours, we were the focus of the news, closed at home wearing masks and the panic set in amongst everyone," she said.

However, Moretti said the situation isn't as severe as what has been seen in the news.

"The way it was presented on the media, especially Italian media, is exaggerated. They make it sound like everyone inside the red zone is sick and 99% of us are OK," she said.

Despite the lockdown, life as usual is going on in the red zone. She takes afternoon walks and her family has been cooking and eating together.

"When we don’t have nothing to do, I think it’s a survival mechanism telling us: if you are in danger, eat more. So we have been cooking a lot of food," she said.