Italian death toll doubles as Europe fights to contain spread

EUROPE yesterday struggled to contain coronavirus after Italy’s death toll more than doubled in two days, and the outbreak spread to new countries including Ukraine and Gibraltar.

Officials said the number of deaths in Italy had shot up by 27 yesterday to reach 79, the biggest official toll outside China so far. That followed 18 deaths the previous day.

The accumulative number of cases in the country, which has been hardest hit in Europe, totalled 2,502, up from 2,036 on Monday, according to Italy’s Civil Protection Agency. Authorities said they were considering setting up a new quarantine red-zone near the northern city of Bergamo.

In Spain, which now has 120 cases, health chiefs in the Canary Islands confirmed the sixth person to test positive at the Tenerife hotel hit by coronavirus is a British woman who was mixing with other guests for more than a week. A spokesman for the regional health authority admitted the unnamed Briton had not been confined to her room at the four-star H10 Costa Adeje Palace. The tourist originally tested negative for the virus and has never shown any symptoms, it is understood. It comes after concerns were raised about the standard of quarantine within the hotel.

Elaine Whitewick, 53, returned on a Jet2 flight from the Tenerife hotel on Sunday after being confined to the hotel for a week. “I can’t believe they let us all sit around together when there was a risk that the virus was spreading in the hotel,” she told The Telegraph last night.

“They must have been mad.”

A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said: “We are supporting a British woman who has been admitted to hospital in Tenerife.”

In mainland Spain’s Basque Country, around 100 health workers were being kept under isolation, and at least 120 more closely surveilled after the virus infected at least five doctors and nurses.

In France, where the number of cases reached 212 and a fourth death was pronounced, around 120 schools were ordered to close, most in Brittany and the hard-hit Oise region north of Paris.

A second case has been confirmed in the Republic of Ireland. It involves a female from the east of the country and is associated with travel from northern Italy, officials said.

Ukraine reported its first case of the virus: a man who had recently arrived from Italy. Gibraltar also registered its first case, a resident who travelled to northern Italy via Malaga airport.