Seventh Italian dies from coronavirus in Europe's worst flare-up

[webfact]

Seventh Italian dies from coronavirus in Europe's worst flare-up

By Elvira Pollina and Emilio Parodi

 

Military officers wearing face masks stand outside Duomo cathedral, closed by authorities due to a coronavirus outbreak, in Milan, Italy February 24, 2020. REUTERS/Flavio Lo Scalzo

 

MILAN (Reuters) - The death toll in Europe's largest coronavirus outbreak rose to seven on Monday and new cases climbed above 220 as Italy shut down much of its wealthy north to curb the disease's spread.

 

Italian shares tumbled more than 5%, the biggest daily drop in almost four years, on worries the flare-up could cause a recession, while worried residents emptied supermarket shelves to stock up on essentials.

 

Authorities in the northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto, the industrial and financial heartlands of Italy, shut schools, universities, museums and cinemas for at least a week, and banned public gatherings including the famed Venice carnival.

 

Ten towns in Lombardy close to Italy's business capital Milan, with a combined population of nearly 50,000, have been placed under effective quarantine, with similar measures adopted for a small town in neighboring Veneto.

 

Supermarket shelves in Milan were stripped bare on Monday as concerns over the spread of coronavirus sparked a wave of panic-buying.

 

"To be honest, nobody thought the spread would be so aggressive," Lombardy regional governor Attilio Fontana told 102.5 RTL radio, predicting, however that the virus would regress in days due to the emergency measures.

 

Local authorities announced four new deaths on Monday - three men in their 80s and a 62-year-old. Three previous fatalities recorded since Friday were also elderly people. All those who have died had underlying health problems.

 

Lombardy remained the worst hit region with 172 confirmed cases, while neighboring Veneto had 33 infections, including four in Venice, which had been packed with tourists before its carnival was curtailed two days ahead of schedule.

 

At national level, 27 people were in intensive care, 101 hospitalized and 94 being monitored at home, officials said.

 

CANCELLATIONS

Economists warned the disruption would take a heavy toll on local businesses and Italy's blue-chip stock index fell 5.4%, with companies most at risk from an expected spending slump bearing the brunt.

 

Motorway and airport retail group Autogrill plunged 12.7%, while high-street clothing retailer OVS fell 12.9% and luxury goods group Tod's 11.4%.

Italy is the world's fifth most visited country and tourism contributes about 13% to GDP, according to the World Trade and Tourism Council. The sector is already taking a hit.

 

"We have been swamped by cancellations in the last few days, in restaurants, hotels, everywhere," said Patrizio Bertin, the head of the Veneto branch of Italy's trade lobby Confcommercio.

 

Milan, a city of 1.3 million people, was much quieter than normal. The city's usually bustling courtrooms were deserted, normally packed bars were largely empty and even the city's imposing Gothic cathedral closed its doors.

 

"We were only meant to spend three days in Milan and then go to Venice for the carnival but everything is shut," said Russian tourist Violla Belova, 50, wearing a face mask as she took photographs of the shuttered Duomo cathedral.

 

"I hope we won't have to cut our trip short."

 

With other countries looking to stop the spread, Mauritius on Monday told passengers from Lombardy and Veneto just arrived aboard an Alitalia aircraft that they would have to go into quarantine if they wanted to stay.

 

Alitalia said 40 out of the 224 passengers and crew were affected and decided to fly back home immediately.

 

Ireland said its citizens should not travel to parts of Italy affected by the outbreak. Tunisia announced it may suspend some flights to Italy to reduce exposure.

 

Prior to Friday, Italy had reported just three cases of the virus - all of them people who had recently arrived from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the illness emerged late last year.

 

Health authorities were frustrated by their failure to identify how the outbreak in the north had started.

 

Doctors say the focal point was the cluster of now closed-off towns in Lombardy, with the disease spreading fast as the first patients sought hospital attention.

 

However, none of the initial patients had been to China and officials do not know who brought the infection to the area.

 

"By now, identifying 'patient zero' in statistical terms would be a great satisfaction ... but you understand that the situation has evolved and must be handled completely differently," said Lombardy official Giulio Gallera.

 

(Additional reporting by Angelo Amante, Silvia Aloisi, Giulio Piovaccari, Riccardo Bastianello and Giulia Segreti; Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Giles Elgood, Peter Graff and Andrew Cawthorne)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-02-25

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[Gweiloman]

Italy was one of the first, if not the first, country to ban travel from China. Fat lot of good it did.

[spiekerjozef]

But they didn't quarantine the ones been there already...

[IAMHERE]

Italy you say?  Is that where the mafia is in control? I'd have to imagine the mask trade is now controlled by tough guys, all the rest is hysteria.

[Berkshire]

4 minutes ago, rhyddid said:

According to a Swiss paper, 4 were got serious pathologies and they pass away with the COVID19 but did not died because of COVID19

What we see is a great amount of global hysteria, for a virus that is just a new kind of flu and kills much less than a seasonal flu.

Yeah, it does seem that elderly people with underlying health problems are the ones dying, throughout the world.  I'm not 100% certain if this is true in all cases, but it would help if the global health authorities would advise us who are the biggest at-risk groups. 

[tyga]

1 hour ago, Berkshire said:

Yeah, it does seem that elderly people with underlying health problems are the ones dying, throughout the world.  I'm not 100% certain if this is true in all cases, but it would help if the global health authorities would advise us who are the biggest at-risk groups. 

what about all the doctors dying of it in China? At least 4 in the news. We can't be complacent that it is only old people who will die. Also,  if it is only 2% but everyone ends up catching it, that is a lot of hospital care, stress in society and deaths. Very worrying.

[Berkshire]

3 minutes ago, tyga said:

what about all the doctors dying of it in China? At least 4 in the news. We can't be complacent that it is only old people who will die. Also,  if it is only 2% but everyone ends up catching it, that is a lot of hospital care, stress in society and deaths. Very worrying.

Like I said, I don't know the circumstances or demographics of all who have died.  But it just "seems" like mostly old folks with underlying health problems.  Having said that, of course I don't want to catch the coronavirus, regardless of whether I'm going to die.  That's some nasty sht.  So yes, China, Thailand, S. Korea, etc. needs to go to extreme measures to prevent further outbreak.  

[pacovl46]

10 hours ago, rhyddid said:

According to a Swiss paper, 4 of them got serious pathologies and they passed away with the COVID19 but did not died because of COVID19
All 7 were above 75yrs old with serious respiratory and/or oncological pathologies.

What we see is a great amount of global hysteria, for a virus that is just a new kind of flu and kills much less than a seasonal flu.

 Not really. The regular flu kills about 0.13% of infected people per year whereas this one kills between 2 and 2.5%. If they had let this thing go completely out of control the death toll would have surpassed the regular flu by quite a bit.