Around 16 March 2020, as in most countries worldwide, a period of quarantine was decreed in Vienna as a measure to mitigate the impact of a global pandemic caused by the rapid spread of a new virus originated in China and called SARS-CoV-2 or colloquially Coronavirus. In a few weeks the number of infections and deaths increased in much of the world to over hundreds of thousands, according to published information.

Unlike other countries and territories, which suffered the epidemic effects with a huge virulence and enforced harsh lockdowns, high restrictions on public life and strict police surveillance, control measures in Vienna were far more lenient. Although a wide range of business sectors, except for basic services, had to close for weeks or even months and many lost their jobs, some leeway was allowed in the Austrian capital, delegated in practice, but not officially, to social responsibility and citizen’s judgement, which enabled me to go out a few times and carry out the following series in this context.

With all this, not only but I mainly concentrated on portraying the environment of one of the highest risk groups within society under these circumstances, due to their hard living, hygiene and health conditions. Drug addicts and alcoholics fundamentally, in many cases immersed in poverty and with fewer resources to face this existential challenge, shape the core of this urgent essay, taken quickly on the days of maximum uncertainty, social disruption and economic shutdown.