Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Italy’s prime minister announced restrictions on about a quarter of its people.
Restrictions will affect a quarter of its people
MILAN — Italy’s prime minister announced a sweeping coronavirus quarantine early Sunday, imposing restrictions on the movement of about a quarter of the country’s population in a bid to contain a widening outbreak.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signed a decree after midnight that imposes restrictions on the movement of people in the region of Lombardy and in at least 15 provinces. The measures will be in place until April 3.
“For Lombardy and for the other northern provinces that I have listed there will be a ban for everybody to move in and out of these territories and also within the same territory,” Conte said. “Exceptions will be allowed only for proven professional needs, exceptional cases and health issues.”
There were chaos and confusion in the northern Italian city of Padua in the Veneto region as word spread late Saturday evening that the government was planning to announce the quarantine.
Packed bars and restaurants quickly emptied out as many people rushed to the train station in Padua.
Travelers wearing face masks and gloves and carrying suitcases and bottles of sanitizing gel, shoved their way on to the local train.
The focal point of the coronavirus emergency in Europe, Italy is also the region’s weakest economy and is taking an almighty hit as foreigners stop visiting its cultural treasures or buying its prized artisanal products, from fashion to food to design.
The European Union’s third-largest economy has long been among the slowest growing in the region and is the one that is tallying the largest number of virus infections outside Asia.
Airlines have cut back on flights to the country, meaning millions fewer travelers are expected — causing billions in losses for hotels, restaurants, tourist sites and many others.
The turmoil is expected to push Italy back into recession and weigh more broadly on the European economy, with trade-focused countries like Germany, France and Britain also struggling with the global disruption to supply chains and travel.
“I am getting cancellations through June,” said Stefania Stea, who has two hotels in Venice, where the Carnival cancellation emptied the city in a single afternoon and sent occupation rates plunging to an unheard of 1 percent to 2 percent.
Stea, who is vice president of the
Venice hoteliers association, is tallying cancellations worth $7,700 to $11,000 a day for her 39 rooms — all currently empty.
“The only reservations I am getting are for Christmas or New Year’s Eve, with people hoping for a deal.”
Italy’s economy is forecast to shrink this quarter, with Bocconi University economist Francesco Daveri predicting a 0.3 percent loss. That would match a surprise shrinkage in the last quarter of 2019 and would put the country in a technical recession.
The country has already shed 4 percent of its GDP in back-to-back recessions in the first two decades of the century, and recovery has been stalled for the last two years.
Banks are still trying to burn off a pile of bad loans left over from the financial crisis a decade ago and the government’s public debt load — the highest in Europe after Greece — limits the country’s ability to significantly ramp up spending to help the economy if needed.
Tourism officials are projecting 32 million fewer foreign visitors and a loss of $8.1 billion in the second quarter alone, before the arrival of the make-or-break summer travel season. Foreign airlines are canceling flights to Milan, Italy’s financial and fashion capital, and to Venice, a top destination.
“Unfortunately, we are paying the price of a media communication that has been much more lethal than the virus,” said Luca Patane, the president of tourism association Confturismo-Confcommercio.