POST
PRODUCTION
SCRIPT
Foreign
Correspondent
2021
Spain:
Into the Outbreak
29
mins 22 secs
©2021
ABC
Ultimo Centre
700
Harris Street Ultimo
NSW
2007 Australia
GPO
Box 9994
Sydney
NSW 2001
Australia
Phone:
61 419 231 533
Precis
|
A flamenco
dancer with no stage, a restauranteur with no customers, a young woman who wouldn't mind catching COVID and a young doctor pushed to
the limit. These are the
people a young Australian reporter encounters when she moves to Spain, the
country of her ancestors, in the midst of its worst
upheaval since the civil war. Spain has been
hit hard by the pandemic. Over 70,000 people have died, it's
endured three waves of the virus and many lockdowns. Australian Lily
Mayers wants to find out how the famously sociable Spanish are coping with
the crisis. Filmed over six
months, Into the Outbreak paints an intimate portrait of a
country and people under pressure, struggling to survive through a
once-in-a-lifetime crisis. In the tourist
town of Barcelona, Helena, a successful restauranteur, is fighting to keep
her business afloat. She's had to close down two
restaurants, let go of 20 staff and is now relying on charity for school
fees. "Many
businesses like me are going to die. It's impossible to survive," she
says. "I think it's time for me to stop fighting and reconsider my
business." Karime is one of
Spain's most famous flamenco dancers. Now she's at
home with no stage, no audience and little income. "Never
before in my life have I had such a hard time,"
she says. "I'll never forget this time. It's so tough." Mayers meets a
group of young people who are happy to risk catching coronavirus so they can
keep going out. "We have to
enjoy ourselves, but with a level of consciousness of course, but we have to
enjoy our life," says Elena. In Madrid,
Susana, a young doctor, feels like she's been in a
war zone. "I cry on
the subway, cry with my friends, with my parents," she says. "We've
found ourselves so overwhelmed we didn't want to accept it any longer." But despite the
hardship, all are managing to adapt and survive. Karime begins to
help other artists in need. Susana starts an industrial campaign to improve
doctors' working conditions. Elena catches COVID. And Helena creates a new
business. "In this
terrible pandemic, where people are losing jobs and family members and just
everything is going wrong, the Spaniards have inside of them, this amazing
way of just ... enjoying the moment," says Helena. |
|
Flamenco
performance |
Music |
00:00 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: It’s famous for
its vibrant culture and love of life, and it’s one of
the world’s most popular destinations. But in 2020, Spain went from tourist
Mecca to COVID central. The country has lived through three waves of the
virus and lost tens of thousands of citizens. |
00:10 |
Lily
to camera. Super: |
Almost 6 months ago I left
the safety of Australia to move to Spain, right in the middle of its worst
crisis in a lifetime. It’s been an extraordinarily
hard time for this country; |
00:44 |
Flamenco |
at times it’s
been confronting to watch. |
00:55 |
Shuttered
empty shops |
Lockdowns
have crushed businesses, the economy is devastated, |
01:00 |
Helena
in restaurant |
but
they’re fighting back. HELENA: Little by little. A little bit here, a
little there. I have hope, and I have trust that I'll
be able to clean up debts and do something new. |
01:05 |
Flamenco |
|
01:18 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Will the Spanish soul survive this year of
loss and rise again? |
01:21 |
Title:
|
|
01:31 |
ABC
Australia news. Lily reporting. |
Newsreader:
"The virus continues to spread through western Sydney's Newmarch
House. Lily Mayers is there tonight. Lily, what's the latest?" Lily: "Jeremy, this morning we learns
another resident within the home has died after contracting…" LILY
MAYERS, Reporter: I spent much of last
year covering COVID in Australia. |
01:36 |
Lily
news report |
Lily:
"There are now 7,320 cases…" |
01:52 |
Spain
virus footage |
LILY
MAYERS, Reporter: But as a journalist
with Spanish heritage, I was struck by how much faster the virus was
spreading in Spain. I made the huge
decision to pack up my life and go there to report on the pandemic. |
01:55 |
Aerial.
Madrid. GFX: |
Music |
02:11 |
Lily
in Madrid. Driving from airport. Madrid GVs |
|
02:18 |
|
LILY
MAYERS, Reporter: I arrive in Spain
as the second wave of the virus is peaking. |
02:25 |
|
We are driving
from the airport to our Airbnb and seeing Madrid for the first time. There's
people out on the streets,
in restaurants and cafes, people walking around shopping. Apart
from the masks it’s hard to tell that there is any
crisis happening. But despite
appearances, there is ongoing tragedy. |
02:31 |
Lily
in church cemetery |
The day after I arrive is All Saints Day, when families mourn their lost loved ones. And this
year there’s an ocean of grief. The coronavirus
death toll has just hit thirty-five thousand. Spain locked down hard when the
virus first hit, but over summer, people dropped their guard. |
02:56 |
Lily
with Elena, Diego, Galit at café |
|
03:29 |
|
I’m catching up
with Elena, a young entrepreneur I’ve just met in Madrid. She and her friends
Diego and Galit are all in their 20s, working by day and going out every weekend. Young people who ignore
social distancing have been blamed for spreading the virus. |
03:38 |
|
"Do you agree that
you, that young people, have exacerbated the problem, or are they being
unfairly targeted?" |
04:00 |
|
DIEGO: During the summer there were probably
no restrictions, so there was a little bit of people going out and big
gatherings of people. So I do agree that we probably
have something to do with the second wave, but I wouldn’t say we are the only
reason or even the main reason about it. |
04:08 |
|
ELENA: We always say let’s do something, let’s have fun, let’s enjoy life. We don’t realise that it is important, actually. |
04:25 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: How has coronavirus
affected your lives, has it changed the way you live at all? |
04:35 |
|
GALIT: We have to
enjoy ourselves but with a level of consciousness of course, but we have to
enjoy our life. |
04:40 |
|
ELENA:
I know that
friends that live with their parents, they're more
worried than us. I live alone, I live with a friend, so I’m
like, I don’t care because if I get the coronavirus – maybe I’m really bad
but it’s not going to affect my family. |
04:46 |
Citizens
applaud health workers |
Music
|
05:03 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: There’s one group
of people who can’t afford to be cavalier. In early 2020, health workers were applauded every
night across Spain. |
05:06 |
Hospital
interior. Doctors treat COVID patients |
But inside hospitals, it was like a war zone. I’ve come to
know a young resident doctor, Susana Pardo.
|
05:20 |
Susana
leaves hospital, walks in street |
Susana is finishing another
24-hour shift in one of Madrid’s biggest public hospitals. She was on the
frontline in the first wave. SUSANA:
The patients were crowding the emergency
department in a scandalous way. There weren’t even
seats for them. |
05:34 |
Susana
interview |
They had to sit on the floor in the corridors. |
05:57 |
Patients
in hospital corridor |
Many patients were arriving in a critical condition. We didn’t have enough oxygen tanks. |
06:03 |
Susana
interview |
Sometimes you left them
with an oxygen mask or nasal cannula |
06:13 |
Doctors
treat patients |
and when you came back after a few hours you found them dead. During March and April, 20 people
died every day. I can’t compare to anything I've
lived through before. |
06:20 |
Susana
in subway |
I cry in the subway, cry with my friends, with my
parents, for no reason. It happens to me a lot. I know on sick leave because
of depression and anxiety. It's quite common now. |
06:40 |
Susana
interview |
I’ve had
this conversation with many colleagues, 'Damn, I’d love to get COVID, so I
can take two weeks of sick leave at home, because I need to disconnect from
the hospital and the work I do'. |
07:05 |
Susana
on train |
It’s
absolutely repetitive, exhausting and emotionally draining. |
07:20 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Despite
working long hours, junior doctors in Spain earn very little. |
07:33 |
Strike
group rally |
|
07:40 |
|
At breaking point,
Susana joined a union strike group to fight for better conditions. |
07:45 |
Susana
addresses rally |
Susana: "We're no longer going to accept that
we can be stepped on and exploited when we're the doctors who'll be in charge
of the health system into the future." |
07:54 |
|
LILY MAYERS,
Reporter: Susana led
negotiations with senior officials, but there’s little progress. |
08:12 |
Lily
with luggage |
Music
|
08:22 |
Lily
to apartment |
[LM1] LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Away from the frontline, life can seem pretty normal, even as restrictions come and go. As one of the few foreigners
moving here, I’m surprised and sometimes a little
embarrassed to find I’m in a privileged position. |
08:32 |
Lily
surveys apartment and view |
This is our new apartment. We feel incredibly lucky to have found a
place like this. It’s notoriously hard to find a
secure apartment like this in the middle of the city. It's
even harder to find one that's got a balcony and views of all the beautiful
buildings in the city. The only reason
we were able to get it, is because it was an Airbnb, and with international
tourism dropping so much because of coronavirus, the owner was pretty keen to get a tenant in long-term. |
08:52 |
Lily
on empty train to Barcelona |
Music |
09:26 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Tourism used to account for more than
twelve percent of Spain’s economy, but it’s ground
to a halt. I’ve been given permission to
travel to Barcelona, to see how it’s faring. |
09:30 |
Tourists,
Ramblas, Barcelona |
This is how it looked before COVID, the
historic centre was packed with tour groups, the locals called the old city ‘Disneylandia’
and wanted tourism reduced. |
09:45 |
Empty
Ramblas |
Now, that’s just a
memory. |
10:07 |
Lily
with Resi at Sagrada Familia |
|
10:14 |
|
Resi Nickl has been a guide in the city for
12 years-- she hasn’t had a single day of work since
last March. She’s agreed to give me a tour of the ‘new’ Barcelona. RESI: We're standing in front
of Sagrada Familia, |
10:23 |
|
which you have behind me in the sunshine. Usually, this would be
packed with people. We're talking about almost five
million people a year coming to Barcelona just to see the site behind me,
this Sagrada Familia, this unfinished church. |
10:37 |
Lily
and Resi walk on the Ramblas |
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: So before COVID, could you ever imagine seeing Las Ramblas so quiet? RESI: No. To be honest, not.
Usually, you were just trying to avoid people somehow, steer through, and now
it's actually quality walking, we could almost say
here on the Ramblas! |
10:52 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: But
before COVID, locals here were complaining that they couldn't
come to places like this because it was too packed, too unpleasant to be with
all the tourists. Have they got their wish now? |
11:11 |
|
RESI: It is the typical thing, a thing of careful what you wish for.
Because on the one hand, we do see more locals reconquering spaces that they
were driven away of, because there was nothing catering to them. On the other
hand, obviously there's the whole economy behind
that moves the city as well. And to come down to the city centre and see half
of the shops empty is not what the locals wished for either. |
11:23 |
Shuttered
shops in old town |
Music |
11:45 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Resi takes me to a popular street in the
old town, where 80 percent of bars and cafes are closed. |
11:58 |
|
What are all these shops being closed going to mean for Barcelona’s
culture and economy? Is it going to be able to recover? RESI: Who knows? Let's hope so. |
12:08 |
|
Music |
12:18 |
Lily
at Resi at Garriga’s Kitchen, greet Helena |
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Resi used to finish her tours here at
Garriga’s Kitchen, a modern Catalan restaurant that was thriving before
COVID. But then came the first lockdown known as
‘confinamiento’. Helena Garriga has already closed one restaurant and is
about to close her second. HELENA:
After the
second confinamiento |
12:27 |
Helena
interview in restaurant |
we decided not to re-open
again, because it is just unviable, it’s almost
impossible to reopen. |
12:57 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: How difficult has that been for you and
your family? |
13:05 |
|
HELENA:
It was a tough decision to make. I had
dreams, I thought it was going to be possible to make it again. But now,
after seeing what everything is happening, I think it’s
time for me to stop fighting and reconsider my business, and maybe go back to
the origin, to this Mom & Pop shop, selling bread and wine and tomatoes. |
13:09 |
Helena's
closed restaurant |
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: The
Spanish government’s ‘Jobkeeper’ style scheme helped pay the wages of some of her employees, but she still
had to let go of 20 staff. With customers disappearing, the debts have
kept growing. |
13:37 |
Helena
interview in restaurant |
What else has the government
done to help small businesses like yours? |
13:54 |
|
HELENA: Well, they’ve given us 1500 euros. LILY MAYERS, Reporter: In total? HELENA: Yes. |
13:57 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: So were you
disappointed by the lack of help from the government? HELENA: Very. Very
disappointing, it’s very disappointing, because it’s
impossible. Many businesses like me are going to die. It’s
impossible to survive. |
14:04 |
Lily
at home with Olivier as he cooks |
Music |
14:20 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: At home, Helena’s husband and former chef
Olivier invites me to help prepare one of the restaurant’s specialties;
Butifarra. |
14:27 |
|
Lily: "With the skin?
Oh wow!" Olivier: "Yeah, that’s
it." LILY
MAYERS, Reporter: The sharp downturn in the family’s income has meant that even a
middle-class family has had to get help to pay school fees. |
14:46 |
|
"What about the school
community, has there been assistance from them at all? OLIVIER: Yes. They have a
fund. They told us the kids can still go to school. It's
finishing in February, but at least we got a good amount of help for half the
year. |
15:02 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Going into the new year -- hopes and dreams
in general? |
15:22 |
|
OLIVIER: We lost all those big dreams of having 10
restaurants or 15 restaurants. Gone. Let’s take
another route. |
15:31 |
|
"And then usually we
break the sausage, the white pork sausage on it, but we're going to separate
it for the sake of you." LILY MAYERS, Reporter: As a vegetarian, in Spain there are always
awkward moments. |
15:42 |
Lily
and family at table |
|
16:00 |
Flamenco
performance |
|
16:11 |
Lily
at flamenco |
I finish my evening taking in Spain’s most
passionate dance. Nothing stirs the blood like flamenco. |
16:25 |
|
Performances like this are increasingly
rare. So many venues have closed that
even the most famous dancers are out of work. |
16:40 |
Karime
dances |
This is renowned
flamenco artist Karime Amaya. Before COVID, she’d
dance for seven hours a day, seven days a week. That life is now gone. |
16:53 |
Karime
films online class |
|
17:25 |
|
"What have been the physical effects of not dancing on your body
and on your mind?" KARIME: There are many effects.
You gain weight, you put on kilos, because my body is used to a huge amount
of activity. |
17:33 |
Karime
interview |
The moment you stop everything falls apart. Knee pain, back pain. Everything's been brutal. Physically, the effect has been
very bad. |
17:56 |
Karime
films online class |
LILY MAYERS,
Reporter: Without the income from performances, Karime has
struggled to survive. To earn money, she teaches dance classes online. |
18:10 |
|
KARIME: Never before in my life have I had
such a hard time. I’m young, I’m 35, but I’ll never
forget this. It’s been so tough. And I have no
savings because I've always lived with what I have. |
18:26 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Like many flamenco artists, she’s found a way to channel her suffering into her work. |
18:50 |
|
KARIME: Through dance we
express all the sadness, the pain and the joy. It’s a form of therapy that helps us
every day. |
19:00 |
Christmas
decorations. Madrid |
Music |
19:17 |
GFX:
2020 DECEMBER |
LILY MAYERS,
Reporter: As the holiday period
begins, Christmas shoppers are out in force, but there’s
a sense of uneasiness. |
19:28 |
Snow
covered Madrid |
As if by
magic, the new year brings something beautiful and unexpected. For the first time in half a century, Madrid
is blanketed by heavy snow. It’s a welcome
break from unrelenting bad news, but as people enjoy it, social distancing is
forgotten. |
19:41 |
Lily
to camera on snowy street |
Across the country there is also a fair amount of anticipation at the moment -- daily case numbers are staggeringly high
again, and doctors think there could be even more infections out there
untested. |
20:08 |
People
in snowy park, kids play football |
In fact, some are saying we're already in the
third wave of the virus.[LM2] I’ve heard through a friend
that Elena, the young entrepreneur I met when I first arrived, has caught
COVID. |
20:19 |
Lily
and Elena, computer interview |
"How are you going?" ELENA: Fine. Fine. Well, at home, obviously. |
20:33 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: The last time we sat down and spoke you
said you wouldn’t care if you got the virus? |
20:40 |
|
ELENA: There’s two ways
of seeing this pandemic. It’s that you can go out
and know that you’re going to get the infection once, it’s the most probable
thing that can happen. Or staying at home all day. I chose the option of
going out, spending time with my friends. So I knew
it was probably that I am going to get the infection. If we don’t socialise, we are going to be really sad, and we are
not going to have life. LILY
MAYERS, Reporter: Elena tells me her
friends from the café, Diego and Galit, would like to catch the virus. |
20:45 |
|
ELENA: They are both asking me if I am well, if I have symptoms, and if not,
then I’m so lucky. |
21:26 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: They want it? ELENA: Yeah. LILY MAYERS, Reporter: I don’t get, but
why? |
21:38 |
|
ELENA: Everyone my age wants to,
because if you just go through this, it’s once, it’s
rarely twice and then you can go out without fear, you’re not afraid of
anything. |
21:42 |
Ambulance |
Music |
22:02 |
|
LILY
MAYERS, Reporter: It’s the second week in January
and nearly 53,000 people are now dead – it’s a huge jump from when I arrived
in October. |
22:08 |
Lily
into hospital hotel. Susana working |
Dr Susana Pardo is now working out of a 4 Star
hotel. With hospitals at capacity,
hotels are unofficial wards for the milder cases. |
22:17 |
Susana
interview |
SUSANA: We're not at the brink of
collapse as we were before, but there's been a clear
rise in cases. |
22:35 |
Health
workers receiving vaccination |
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: There’s hope a
national vaccination drive will lend some protection to frontline workers
like Susana. SUSANA: In my work we’re
already 80 percent of the staff are already vaccinated. |
22:45 |
Susana
receives vaccination |
We hope this will be the solution, or
at least make a big impact. |
22:56 |
Susana
after vaccination |
I've just had the vaccine. I feel great
and I'm so happy. |
23:10 |
Barcelona
GV. GFX: |
Music |
23:14 |
Lily
visits Helena at restaurant |
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: I return to Barcelona to check in on
restaurateur Helena Garriga. I find her a changed woman. Although she hasn’t
been able to re-open her restaurant, she’s launched a new business selling
specialty food products, and it’s really taking off. |
23:23 |
|
HELENA:
So we made
cannelloni and we sold a hundred cannelloni last week. The orders just kept
on coming. |
23:48 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Do you
feel a bit more in control of everything that's
happening and the situation at the moment? |
23:55 |
|
HELENA: Well, certainly I feel
like a light weight inside of me, because when I didn't
know what was going to happen with our business, it's a heavy feeling. You
feel like, "Oh my God, what's going to happen to my professional
life". |
24:00 |
|
And since December that I saw that it is possible to still be in
business. So yes, I think that we'll manage to
survive. |
24:20 |
Helena
serves customers |
LILY
MAYERS, Reporter: Helena still has faith in her
country. |
24:37 |
|
HELENA: With the circumstances that we live in, in this terrible
pandemic, |
24:40 |
People
on streets, Barcelona |
where people
are losing jobs and family members and just everything is going wrong, the
Spaniards have inside of them, this amazing way of just moving on and
enjoying the moment. |
24:47 |
Volunteers
providing food for artists |
Music |
25:04 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: The artistic community is also finding its way. |
25:17 |
|
Music |
25:21 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Triple A is an association that provides
food for artists in need. |
25:29 |
Lily
greets Karime at Triple A |
I meet up with Karime who’s volunteering with them. For her, the struggle continues. And unless
flamenco venues re-open soon, she worries the artform won’t
survive. |
25:36 |
|
KARIME: Flamenco bars are
where people can see the dance in its most pure, traditional form. |
26:00 |
Karime
interview |
The big problem is whether these families and
artists can continue what they’ve been working on
their whole lives. |
26:06 |
Karime
collecting food supplies |
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Could you ever imagine your life not
dancing flamenco? KARIME: It’s part of my nature, I
couldn’t imagine it. |
26:19 |
Karime
interview |
Wherever, whenever, I’ll
keep on dancing. |
26:31 |
Madrid
spring GVs |
Music |
26:34 |
Lily
walks in park |
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: Back in
Madrid, spring is in the air. And for the first time in seven months, case numbers are
dropping. |
26:39 |
Susana
greets Lily at apartment |
Susana Pardo can finally
see an end to the nightmare. But she’s not optimistic the government will improve
conditions for junior doctors. SUSANA: The government is
dragging its feet, delaying deadlines. They are honestly wearing us down. |
26:51 |
|
LILY MAYERS,
Reporter: She’s
so disillusioned she’s not sure she wants to continue working as a doctor. |
27:17 |
|
SUSANA: At work, I only think about the end of my
shift and when I can go home, |
27:24 |
Susana
interview |
and about finishing my
residency, let's see what I'll do. I'm wondering if I should have chosen a different career,
because I’m not happy with my job. The truth is I’d
like to be in different position in life. |
27:30 |
Street
performers |
|
27:58 |
|
LILY MAYERS, Reporter: COVID
has exhausted this country. And it’s not over yet.
But here in Madrid, people are
enjoying the moment when they can. |
28:04 |
Food
market. Lily shopping |
The
food markets are open, people come out to shop and socialise. There’s such a
strong need for connection and normality. I’ve
always been inspired by the beauty here; now I’m in awe of the people – their strength,
their warmth and their endurance. |
28:18 |
Credits
[see below[] |
Music |
28:51 |
Outpoint |
|
29:23 |
CREDITS:
Reporter
Lily Mayers
Producer
Brietta Hague
Camera
Mikel Konate
Additional
Camera
Connor Doyle
Editor
Stuart Miller
Resarcher
Lali Sandiumenge
Thank
you:
Sergi Cochs
Actua Ayuda Alimenta (#AAA)
Tablao Cordobés
and Tati Amaya
Asociación de Médicos
y Titulados
Superiores de Madrid (AMYST)
Assistant
Editor
Tom Carr
Archival
Research
Michelle Boukheris
Production
Co-ordinator
Victoria
Allen
Sound
Mix
Evan Horton
Colourist
Simon Brazzalotto
Online
Editors
Andrew McLean
Patrick Livingstone
Publicity
Paul
Akkermans
Lillian
Reeves
Legal
Jennifer Arnup
Deborah Auchinachie
Senior
Production Manager
Michelle Roberts
Research
Anne Worthington
Victoria Allen
Promo
Producer
Steve Noble
Digital
Producer
Matt Henry
Supervising
Producer
Lisa
McGregor
Executive
Producer
Matthew Carney
Can the shot of me putting on foundation at 00:09:54:24 be replaced with 00:00:00:22 onwards in the camera proxy: MovingInApartment.mp4 [LM1]