Lawmakers Matteo Dall’Osso (right) and Maria Teresa Baldini wear sanitary mask during a work session in the Italian lower chamber
Italy reported a 45% one-day increase in people infected with the coronavirus as other countries in Europe recorded their first cases Tuesday, producing evidence that travelers are carrying the virus from the European outbreak’s current epicenter.
Italian officials reported 11 deaths and 322 confirmed cases of the virus, 100 more than a day earlier. While the majority were concentrated in northern Italy, some of the new cases registered outside the country’s two hard-hit regions, including three in Sicily, two in Tuscany and one in Liguria.
An Italian couple from the afflicted north tested positive in the Canary Islands off Africa, forcing the quarantine of their hotel in what one guest said felt like being “monkeys in a cage.” Austria, Croatia and Switzerland reported their first cases, all in people who recently traveled to Italy.
The four new deaths in Italy, like the seven reported earlier, were in patients who were elderly, suffering from other ailments or both, officials said.
Amid increasing cases and distribution problems with protective gear and test kits, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte defended the measures Italy has taken to contain the outbreak and predicted a stabilizing of numbers soon. But he acknowledged that the rise in cases — the most outside Asia — was “worrisome.”
“Obviously I can’t say I’m not worried because I don’t want anyone to think we’re underestimating this emergency,” he said before a meeting with a visiting World Health Organization mission. “But we trust that with the measures we’ve implemented there will be a containing effect in the coming days.”
Italy has closed schools, museums and theaters in the two regions where clusters have formed and troops are enforcing quarantines around 10 towns in Lombardy and the epicenter of the Veneto cluster, Vo’Euganeo.
The sponsors of one of the world’s largest furniture and design trade shows, held in Milan, announced late Tuesday that they decided to postpone the international event s due to concerns over the virus. Milan is the Lombardy regional capital.
Italian health officials haven’t yet confirmed the source of the outbreak. Angelo Borrelli, the head of the Italian civil protection department, said the case count grew from 222 to 322, representing a 45% increase, in a 24-hour period from Tuesday to yesterday [Macau time].
The southern island of Sicily reported its first three positive cases from a woman vacationing from Bergamo, in Lombardy and two others travelling with her. Two cases were also reported in Tuscany, south out of the epicenter.
From Italy…
Authorities in western Germany said yesterday that a man who contracted COVID-19 is in critical condition and has been taken to a specialist hospital in Duesseldorf, as officials in neighboring Austria sealed off an apartment complex where a female tourist from Italy with a possible infection died overnight.
The health ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia state said the man was first hospitalized Monday with serious pneumonia in the town of Erkelenz near the Dutch border.
He was then diagnosed with the new virus and isolated in an intensive care unit before being transported to Duesseldorf’s University Hospital. The man’s wife was also isolated on suspicion of contracting the virus after showing symptoms.
German news agency reported that the man was in his 40s and had a pre-existing condition.
Stephan Pusch, who heads the district administration in Heinsberg, where Erkelenz is located, said Wednesday that schools and kindergartens in the area would remain shut Wednesday. He urged people who display symptoms of illness to stay at home and contact their doctors by phone.
Authorities in Austria placed an apartment complex in the southern town of Bad Kleinkirchheim under quarantine yesterday after a 56-year-old woman from Italy died overnight. Kaernten state officials said tests were being conducted to determine whether the woman, from the town of Friaul in northern Italy, had the virus. Other residents of the apartment complex were also being tested, they said.
Austria, Switzerland and Croatia on Tuesday reported their first cases of the virus, all involving people who had recently come from Italy. AP
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