The coronavirus has claimed
its sixth victim in Italy, an 80-year-old man from Castiglione
d'Adda who died in Milan's Sacco Hospital.
Last Thursday he was rushed to hospital in Lodi after a heart
attack, the same day that a 38-year-old man arrived, the first
patient positive for the virus.
The 80-year-old was admitted to the intensive care unit and
after he tested positive was moved to the Sacco in Milan where
he died.
The Lombardy regional government, meanwhile, denied reports
that a person with the coronavirus had died at Brescia's Civili
hospital.
That would have made the virus's death toll in Italy seven.
Civil Protection Department Head Angelo Borrelli said 2129
people in Italy have been infected with the deadly virus.
Italy is now third in the world for coronavirus cases after
China and South Korea.
Borrelli said there were 167 cases in Lombardy, including
four people who died in the region.
In Veneto 27 cases have been reported, including that of a
77-year-old man from the town of Vo' Euganeo who died, Adriano
Trevisan, and there are 18 in Emilia-Romagna, plus four in
Piedmont and three in Lazio.
The Lazio cases are that of an Italian researcher who was
brought back from Wuhan and has recovered and two Chinese
tourists being treated at Rome's Spallanzani hospital, also out
of the woods.
Borrelli said 99 people are being treated in hospital, while
another 23 are in intensive care and 91 are in isolation at
home.
He said there was no reason not to press ahead with plans to
visit Italy.
"There is security in our country. You can come with peace of
mind," he said.
The authorities have taken emergency measures to try to stop
the spread of the virus.
Road blocks have been set up to stop people entering or
leaving around 10 towns in the province of Lodi that is the
epicentre of the virus in Lombardy.
The regions of Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Trentino-Alto
Adige and Friuli Venezia Giulia have closed schools,
universities, museums, monuments and libraries and banned public
events that attract big crowds.
As a result four Serie A games were postponed on Sunday and
the famous Venice carnival was cancelled.
Part of the problem for the Italian authorities is that they
do not yet know where the contagion has come from.
A manager who recently visited China and who was thought to
be the 'patient zero' for the Italian outbreak, as he had
contact with a 38-year-old who spread the disease to other
people, has tested negative for it.
European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides announced that
a team of experts from the European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization was
being sent to help Italy in its efforts to limit the
transmission of COVID19.
"We are following the situation in Italy very closely and
commend the Italian authorities for their swift and efficient
action," Kyriakides said via Twitter.
"@EU_Commission stands ready to provide support.
"It is only together that we can contain the spread of the
#COVID19".
A train that was halted at the Brenner Pass, at the border
between Austria and Italy, late on Sunday because two German
women appeared to have had flu symptoms was allowed through and
completed its journey to Munich after they tested negative for
the coronavirus.
Basilicata Governor Vito Bardi has ordered that anyone who
enters the southern region from northern regions hit by the
outbreak must undergo a 14-day period of quarantine in isolation
or at home.
The coronavirus emergency will push Italy into recession,
economists are forecasting.
A technical recession is almost inevitable after negative
growth of 0.3% in the last quarter of last year, with GDP
falling by 0.5%-1% this year, they believe.
"There will certainly be a technical recession," Lorenzo
Codogno, founder of LC Macro Advisors in London, told ANSA.
"The 2020 estimate is between -0.5% and -1%," he said.
Raffaella Tenconi, chief economist at ADA Economics, said
unless the situation is swiftly resolved a contraction of 1% in
GDP this year is "plausible".
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