Fear of contagion but also less money in the pocket after almost two years of pandemic: and the restaurants in Cagliari, even at the weekend at the Marina, remain empty and - when that's okay - they equalize their expenses with the proceeds.

"After the Christmas holidays it is normal for customers to be scarce - sighs Ilio Todde, owner of L'Oca Bianca in via Napoli - but this month is worse than the worst January." For Maurizio Dedoni of the Sa Schironada restaurant in via Baylle "collapse of 70 percent of seats: before you had to book to dine here, now you arrive and take a seat quietly ".

Fortunately, summer 2021 went well: today, therefore, we survive with the money that entered the cash register during the summer, and we try to get by in the face of the gigantic question mark that is the future.

For Letizia Fois, waitress in the L'Ambasciata bar-restaurant in via Barcellona, “summer earnings are eroding to get by now and still offer a service, also because between the cold season and the pandemic you don't see a tourist on the street”. For restaurants, this slow pace is more important than for other businesses. “Gas, electricity and food cost more, I have employees whose collections would not even allow them to pay overtime”, explains Sergio Cannas, owner of Ci Pensas Cannas in via Sardegna.

Alberto Melis, restaurateur, vice president of the Consortium of merchants of the historic center and member - in the Confcommercio Sud Sardegna - of Fipe, that is the Federation of public businesses: "For us restaurateurs, and for all the related industries that are suffering so much this high infectivity of the Omicron variant, is a test of resistance: we have to stay up for a couple of months giving up on earnings, and this concerns all Sardinian restaurants. Between infections, quarantines and fear of the virus, we just have to trust that the infections make us immune and wait a couple of months ".

DAMAGE TO MENTAL HEALTH - Isolation, freezing of social relations and leisure opportunities, loss of job or smartworking and distance learning: with all this, to pay the expenses of the fourth wave, there is also mental health.