Outbreak in Italy
The nation tries to check virus’ spread.
CODOGNO, Italy — Italy scrambled Sunday to check the spread of Europe’s first major outbreak of the new viral disease amid rapidly rising numbers of infections and a third death, calling off the popular Venice Carnival, scrapping major league soccer matches in the stricken area and shuttering theaters, including Milan’s legendary La Scala.
Concern was also on the rise in neighboring Austria, which halted all rail traffic to and from Italy for several hours after suspicion that a train at its southern border with Italy had two passengers possibly infected with the virus on board, authorities said. Austria’s Interior Ministry said it had been informed by Italy’s railway company that two passengers had fevers and stopped the train at the Brenner crossing before it could enter Austria.
Just before midnight, however, Austrian Federal Railways announced on Twitter that the ban had been lifted. Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said the two people suspected of being infected with the virus on the Eurocity 86 train from Venice to Munich, Germany, had tested negative and the train would be allowed to continue on its way, according to the ORF broadcast network.
The decision to call off Venice Carnival was announced by Veneto regional Gov. Luca Zaia as the number of confirmed virus cases soared, reaching 157 Sunday night, the largest number outside Asia.
“The ordinance is immediately operative and will go into effect at midnight,” said Zaia, whose area includes Venice, where thousands packed St. Mark’s Square. Carnival would have run through Tuesday.
Roadblocks were set up in at least some of 10 towns in the Lombardy region at the epicenter of the outbreak, including in Casalpusterlengo, to keep people from leaving or arriving. Even trains transiting the area weren’t allowed to stop.
Buses, trains and other forms of public transportation — including boats in Venice — were being disinfected, Zaia told reporters. Museums were also ordered to shut down after Sunday in Venice, a top tourist draw anytime of the year, as well as in Lombardy.
Authorities said three people in Venice have tested positive for the viral disease known as COVID-19, all of them in their late 80s. All were hospitalized in critical condition.
Other northern regions with smaller numbers of cases are Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont.
Italy’s first two cases were a Chinese tourist couple, diagnosed this month and reported to be recovering in a Rome hospital.
The death on Sunday of an elderly woman, who was already suffering from cancer when she contracted the virus, raised the nation’s death toll to three, said Lombardy regional official Giulio Gallera.
Authorities expressed frustration that they haven’t been able to track down the source of the virus that is spreading in the north and which surfaced last week when an Italian man in his late 30s in Codogno became critically ill.
“The health officials haven’t been yet able to pinpoint ‘patient zero,’ ” Angelo Borrelli, head of the national civil protection agency, told reporters in Rome.
So for now, Borrelli indicated the strategy is to concentrate on closures and other restrictions to try to stem the spread.
Gallera told reporters in Milan that schools, museums, discos, pubs and theaters would stay closed for at least seven days. But restaurants in Milan and other Lombardy cities outside the main cluster area can still operate since, unlike at concerts, in eateries “people are not congregated in one place and there is space between tables,” Gallera said.
Lombardy’s ban on public events also extended to Masses in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation. Venice also was prohibiting public Masses.