Italy orders lockdown of swaths of north in bid to stop coronavirus
US death-toll from virus hits 19 • New York declares emergency
MILAN (Reuters) – Italy imposed a virtual lockdown across a swath of its wealthy north on Sunday, including the financial capital Milan, in a drastic new attempt to try to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
The unprecedented clampdown, which will impact some 16 million people and stay in force until April 3, was signed into law overnight by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
The draconian new measures order people not to enter or leave Lombardy, Italy’s richest region, as well as 14 provinces in four other regions, including the cities of Venice, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia and Rimini.
“There will be no movement in or out of these areas, or within them, unless for proven, work-related reasons, emergencies or health reasons,” Conte told a news conference in the middle of the night after hours of confusion over his plans.
All museums, gyms, cultural centers, ski resorts and swimming pools will be shut in the targeted zones, while leave was canceled for health workers as Italy’s hospitals sag under the pressure of the virus.
The government enacted the draft just hours after officials had announced that the number of coronavirus cases had leapt by more than 1,200 in a 24-hour period – the biggest daily rise since the epidemic began there two weeks ago.
Deaths due to the infectious virus had also risen, by 36 to 233, while the number of patients in intensive care climbed to 567, up 23% from the day before. Of the 5,883 Italians originally infected, 589 have fully recovered.
Meanwhile, a top US public health official said on Sunday signs of coronavirus spreading through US communities was “not encouraging” and warned that Americans may need to think carefully about attending large gatherings if it continues, as more cases were reported across the country.
“I think we’re getting a better sense (of the scope of the outbreak) as the days go by,” Anthony Fauci, the head of the infectious diseases unit at the National Institutes of Health, said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
“Unfortunately that better sense is not encouraging because we’re seeing community spread,” he said.
Two more people succumbed to the novel coronavirus in Washington state, bringing the nationwide toll to 19, while the number of cases in New York rose to 89 and a cruise ship with infected passengers remained stranded outside San Francisco.
More than half of all US states have reported cases of the coronavirus, which causes the sometimes deadly respiratory illness COVID-19.
The two latest deaths were in Washington’s King County, the hardest hit area in the United States after the virus spread among residents at a nursing facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland. The first deaths on the East Coast were announced late Friday, with two people succumbing in Florida.
In New York, the number of confirmed cases rose by 13 on Saturday to a statewide total of 89 people, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. He issued a declaration of emergency.
“It allows expedited purchasing and expedited hiring, which is what we need right now,” Cuomo said
Kansas, Missouri and Washington DC announced their first cases. In international waters off California, passengers on a cruise ship that was barred from docking in San Francisco after some aboard tested positive for the novel coronavirus did not know on Saturday when they might be able to step ashore.
Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, told a news conference at the White House on Saturday that a total of 2.1 million coronavirus tests will be shipped to non-public labs by Monday, as the Trump administration aims to counter criticism that its response to the disease has been sluggish.
Multiple manufacturers will soon send millions more tests, he said. “What they told us is they believe they could scale up by the end of next week... for the capacity for 4 million additional tests that could be shipped,” Hahn said.
Across the world, countries met new cases with a mixture of reactions.
Italy should ban all its citizens from traveling to Europe in order to curb the new coronavirus outbreak, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Sunday. “Italy should ban all its citizens from traveling to Europe, because we are not able to order such a thing within (the European Union’s border-less area) Schengen,” Babis said on Czech Television.
In Bulgaria, two men from the northern city of Pleven and two women from the central city of Gabrovo tested positive following widespread testing, said Todor Kantardzhiev, head of the National Center of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases.
Several Gulf Arab states recorded new cases of the coronavirus on Sunday including Saudi Arabia, which detected four more infections to take the total to 11, state media reported.
The Saudi Health Ministry said that the newly diagnosed individuals, three of whom are women, interacted with another case reported previously who had been in Iran but did not disclose that fact to the authorities.
Saudi Arabia banned travel to Iran and said legal actions will be taken against any Saudi national traveling there. Riyadh also called on Tehran to disclose the identity of its citizens who visited Iran since February 1.
The Saudi government on Saturday restricted land crossings with the UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain to commercial trucks only and said passenger arrivals will be limited to three airports.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Sunday 272 new coronavirus cases, for a total of 7,313 in the country. Two further deaths took the toll to 50, it added.
The increase in cases was lower than the same period a day before, though health officials have warned numbers could fluctuate.
In the city of Daegu, which accounts for as much as 75% of all of South Korea’s confirmed cases, mayor Kwon Young-jin told reporters the number of new cases has dropped below 300 for the first time since February 29, Yonhap news agency reported.
“The increase in the number of infection cases is showing signs of slowing down,” he said, according to Yonhap.
Daegu and two neighboring areas have been declared “special care zones” by the government, which has sent extra medical supplies and staff and deployed military troops to disinfect the streets.