Authorities have confined a dozen cities in the north of the country to contain the epidemic.
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TheItaly is the first European country to register fatal cases of coronavirus among its nationals, with a second death announced on Saturday, forcing the authorities to confine a dozen cities in the north of the country to contain the epidemic and reassure worried residents.
The victims are a 78-year-old retired mason who lived in a small village in Veneto, a region close to Lombardy, where another death, that of a 75-year-old woman, was announced on Saturday morning. In both cases, these people had been hospitalized for ten days for other conditions but were both tested positive for the new coronavirus.
The man had been hospitalized for ten days in Veneto, in northern Italy, for a disease not related to the coronavirus, according to the Ministry of Health, but a test confirmed that he had been contaminated. Adriano Trevisan, a retired bricklayer, was one of the new infected cases in Veneto which became three overnight, according to local authorities. Five doctors and eleven others have been identified as carriers of the new coronavirus in Lombardy. Other than the doctors, the other people frequented the same bar and the same group of friends.
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In total, Italy now has around forty cases of contamination, including at least 32 in Lombardy around an identified outbreak in Codogno, 60 km from Milan, 7 in Veneto, added to the first three treated cases since Friday in Rome, according to Sky Italia television. The woman who died at night lived in Casalpusterlengo, not far from Codogno.
“Patient 1”
According to regional health assistant Giulio Gallera, it is “increasingly clear” that the cases of contamination are all linked to a 38-year-old man, “patient 1”, hospitalized in intensive care since Wednesday in Codogno, near Lodi, 60 km from Milan.
“The Lodi area is the epicenter of the outbreak”, although it is still unclear from whom this man, a member of the multinational Unilever, contracted the disease. He may have been infected, according to media reports, by a friend with whom he had dinner several times at the restaurant. The latter, who returned from China in January, was tested negative for the coronavirus from which he could be cured.
The other cases detected were people who were in contact with “patient 1” directly like his 8 month pregnant wife, a friend with whom he played sports and three regulars at a local bar as well as doctors, caregivers, and patients from Codogno hospital who in turn infected those around them.
Drastic measures
The peninsula is now the most affected country in Europe by the viral pneumonia epidemic that started in China in December. This sudden wave of contaminations has forced the Italian authorities to take drastic semi-containment measures for a week in ten cities in the north.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called a special meeting with civil defense on Saturday, noting that the executive plans to take other “extraordinary measures”.
In most of these cities, bars and restaurants, schools, churches and some 40 stadiums and sports halls have been closed. The measure also affects libraries, town halls, many shops. Even the carnival parades have been canceled.
A total of more than 50,000 residents were asked to stay at home as much as possible, and to avoid enclosed areas. About 250 people, including 70 doctors and nursing assistants, have been placed in solitary confinement for the time of their testing after being contacted with cases in Lombardy. Schools were also closed on Saturday in the big city of Cremona. Trains were stopped at Milan and Lecce (Puglia) stations on Friday evening to drop passengers with flu-like symptoms.
The president of the Venetian region Luca Zaia, interviewed on Rainews24, assured that “the big question” was the source of the contamination in his region because the patients had had “no contact” with Chinese or people of back from China.
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