How did the corona outbreak start in Italy?
That is not clear. At the end of January, corona was found at a Chinese tourist couple in Rome. The virus was also diagnosed by an Italian repatriated from Wuhan. They have been kept in quarantine.
But on Friday, February 21, dozens of doctors, nurses, and patients suddenly appeared to be infected with the virus in the hospital of Codogno, a small town southeast of Milan. They were probably infected by a 38-year-old patient who was admitted earlier in the week with pneumonia.
It was thought that he had been infected at a dinner party with a friend who had just returned from Shanghai. But that man turned out not to be infected. It is therefore unclear who ‘patient zero’ is, the patient who started this new outbreak.
Marion Koopmans, head of virology at Erasmus MC, says that mistakes have been made in Italy. “It is evident that they have missed one or more links in the contamination chain in Italy.”
What measures are being taken in Italy to prevent further spread?
A number of northern municipalities where a relatively large number of infections have been detected are isolated. Around 50,000 people live together. People are not allowed to go to school or work there. The government met in an emergency session on Saturday. All roads and railways to that area are closed and are being monitored.
In Milan, the mayor called for a reduction in social contacts. Public buildings are closed and cafés must close their doors after 6 p.m.
According to virologist Koopmans, this does not mean that extra measures must also be taken in the Netherlands.
Why is this outbreak not called a pandemic?
A pandemic is an epidemic on a global scale. According to Jaap van Dissel of the RIVM, something is only a pandemic if there are chains of infections. But so far most of the infections have been imported from the original source of infection and the corona virus can therefore be traced back to Wuhan in China.
Only in Italy, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Iran is it not clear how the infections originated.
The WHO called the Mexican flu a pandemic in 2009. Because the consequences of this were not so bad afterwards, the WHO was criticized for having been too alarmistic.
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