Italy took a page from China’s playbook on Sunday, enclosing about 16 million other people, more than a quarter of its population, for about a month to avoid the relentless march of the new coronavirus in Europe.
Weddings and museums, cinemas and grocery stores are affected by the new restrictions, which are concentrated in a component of northern Italy but disrupt the daily life of the country. After mass testing revealed more than 7,300 infections, Italy has reported more cases of viruses than any other country except China, where the disease is declining. The death toll in the country rose to 366.
From Venice to Milan, confusion reigned as citizens and tourists tried to know when and how the new measures would be implemented. Passengers huddled on trains reserved for status seats, sticking their faces in scarves and sharing disinfectant gel.
Increasingly, more occasions around the world have been cancelled or hidden behind closed doors, from Pope Francis’ Sunday service to a Formula One car race in Bahrain or a sumo festival in Japan, where wrestlers came to the sand dressed in masks and had to wear a hand sanitizer before entering. In Saudi Arabia, officials announced that all schools and universities would be closed from Monday, as would other Gulf countries. Doubts arose about the desirability of holding rallies of the U.S. presidential crusade and other possible “supercast” rallies as the virus entered new states.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signed a quarantine decree on Sunday morning for the disgusting and rich north of the country. Blocked areas include Milan, the Italian monetary center and the main city of Lombardy, and Venice, the main city of the neighboring Veneto region. The ordinary measures shall be in force until 3 April.
Tourists from the region, in addition to those abroad, were free to return home, Italy’s shipping ministry said, and noted that airports and exercise stations remained open.
The Pope, who was ill, celebrated his Sunday blessing through a video that was in person, although not directly affected by the confinement. He described feeling “in a cage.”
This is a familiar feeling in China, where the government locked up about 60 million more people in hubei’s central province last January. Six weeks later, they’re still well blocked.
The World Health Organization said China’s resolution had helped the rest of the world prepare for the arrival of the virus, and WHO leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted his for Italians on Sunday and their ‘bold and courageous measures to slow the speed of the coronavirus’. .
China has suffered about three-quarters of the 109,000 coronavirus infections worldwide and the peak of its 3,800 deaths. However, new infections in China have stabilized and others in China and around the world have already recovered.
Infections intensified on Sunday at other epicentres: South Korea, Iran and especially Italy. And with a drop in tourist traffic and major disruptions in global chains, stocks struggled on Sunday when Middle East indices fell by 4% to 10%.
Italy closes all museums and archaeological sites, even those far from the blocking zone. He suspended all marriages until April 3. The northern regions affected by Sunday’s decree are the last cinemas and ski slopes.
Restaurants across Italy are expected to keep consumers a metre away.
The Vatican museums are now closed, adding the Sistine Chapel, an additional blow to the Italian tourism industry. Alitalia, the Italian airline that was already in financial difficulty before the virus, suspended all domestic and foreign flights from Milan Malpensa airport from Monday.
Lombardy’s pin, which is quarantined himself, sought to calm the public, discouraging hoarding and insisting that “we are moving on to war”.
Chaos erupted hours before Conte signed the decree, when data on the planned quarantine was leaked. Students from the University of Padua in northern Italy, who had gone out to bars on a Saturday night, saw the reports on their phones and ran to the station.
Tensions over the restrictions caused an insurrection in a crime in Modena through angry prisoners that their relatives would not surrender, Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported. The prisoners finally surrendered.
In an inversion of stereotypical tensions between north and south in Italy, the governor of Puglia suggested that northerners stay away and cause viral infections in the south.
“Get down to the first station. Don’t fly,” Gov. Michele Emiliano said in his dramatic appeal. “Turn around in your cars, get off the pullman buses at the next stop.”
On Sunday afternoon, the citizens of northern Italy were still confused.
Factory employee Luca Codazzi was due to leave for 40 weeks on Sunday, but instead faced new limits on his freedom.
The government-approved decree “was poorly drafted, there are many interpretations,” he said. “In theory, the cord passes at midnight, ” said Codazzi. You still don’t know if your factory will be open on Monday.
Governments across Europe have tightened their rules. Bulgaria has banned all public events indoors. The French president and the German ruling parties held emergency security meetings, and the number of instances in the country exceeded 1,000.
In waters around the world, the virus has left the cruise ship in disarray.
The Grand Princess cruise, where 21 others tested positive for the virus, was on its way to Oakland on Sunday after being inactive off San Francisco for days. Expect to land on Monday. Americans will be transferred to services across the country for testing and isolation, but it is not yet known what will happen to passengers from other countries. The ship had an organization of approximately 20 infections on a previous voyage that resulted in a death.
Another cruise shipment is quarantined on the Nile in Egypt with forty-five cases of viruses. Two other shipments without instances shown were denied this weekend from Malaysia and Malta amid viral fears.
Advice to the public continues to vary. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that the elderly and others with severe ailments “stay home as much as possible” and the crowds. A federal official told The Associated Press that the White House had canceled fitness officials seeking to advise older and dissused Americans not to also fly on advertising airlines. A spokesman for Vice President Mike Pence denied it.
The death toll in the United States from the virus has risen to 19, the highest number of those suffering from it in Washington state. Infections amounted to more than 470, including the first case in the national capital.
Even as the virus spreads, dozens of study teams around the world rush to create a vaccine.
China reported 44 new cases on Sunday in the last 24 hours, the lowest point since it began publishing national figures on 20 January, and 27 new deaths. Italy is now the number 2 epicenter, beating South Korea, which now has a total of 7,313 cases, with a total of 50 deaths.
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