Coronavirus: Restrictions in Italy are here to stay, expert warns
Experts warn Italy's coronavirus peak may not arrive until mid-April as the country goes into lockdown.
Wednesday 11 March 2020 07:35, UK
British Airways and Ryanair are to suspend all flights to and from Italy after the entire nation was placed in lockdown in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
BA said it had contacted all customers due to fly today, as millions of Italians in normally busy cities like Rome and Milan woke up to deserted streets and an eerie silence.
Some flights have also been cancelled for Wednesday while Ryanair said it was stopping Italy international from the weekend.
Italy already has Europe's worst outbreak and experts are warning the peak of the spread may not arrive until mid-April in the north, so far the country's hardest hit area, and possibly later in other regions.
"Citizens must know that this is not about changing their lifestyle just for one or two weeks," said the head of the Italian national centre for epidemiology, Stefania Salmaso.
She told the ANSA news agency that the restrictions "will likely have to be kept for a long time".
The new measures, announced late on Monday, clamp down on movement and close down public spaces. They widen steps already taken in the rich northern region of Lombardy and parts of neighbouring provinces.
All public gatherings are banned, sports events including football matches are suspended, and movement is being severely restricted across the nation in a bid to contain COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.
Schools and universities will be closed at least until 3 April, and ski resorts are shut down.
"Time is running out," said Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. "Everybody must do their part."
The Foreign Office has warned Britons against all but essential travel to the whole of the country. And people arriving in the UK from anywhere in Italy have been told to self-isolate for 14 days.
Flights are being scaled back at a fast rate.
In addition to BA's announcement, Ryanair said its domestic services within Italy would cease from Thursday until 8 April with international flights pausing from Saturday until 8 April.
Passengers affected were being offered flight transfers, full refunds or travel credits, Ryanair said.
EasyJet is still running a small number of Italy services as things stand but another no-frills carrier, Norwegian, said it was responding to a collapse in demand for air travel by temporarily laying-off a "significant" number of staff as it prepared to slash 15% of its total schedule from next week.
Italy has so far reported 463 virus-related deaths, an increase of almost 100 in a 24-hour period, and more than 9,000 confirmed infections in just over two weeks.
Frontline medical staff have likened the outbreak to a "tsunami", sharing tales of endless shifts and dramatic choices in deciding who to treat with limited space in intensive care units.
In a rare victory, doctors said the man known as Patient 1 has been moved out of intensive care for the first time since he tested positive on 21 February - triggering the crisis in Italy.
The man, a 38-year-old identified only as Mattia, began breathing on his own with just a small amount of oxygen assistance, said doctors at the San Matteo hospital in Pavia.
The new measures amount to the biggest restrictions of movement for 60 million Italians since the Second World War.
People can only move around for work, for health needs or emergencies or else stay at home. Anyone travelling will have to fill in a document declaring their reasons and carry it with them.
The Italian government has said grocery stores will remain open, seeking to quell fears of shortages and warning against panic buying.
"There's no need - in fact it runs contrary to the measure's motivations - to rush to buy food or other goods that can be bought in coming days. Food supplies will be guaranteed," the PM's office said in a statement.
But people have been frantically buying up food and other essentials at supermarkets, Italian media reported, including stores staying open at night.
Bars and restaurants are only permitted to open between 6am to 6pm, but must be able to guarantee customers are at least one metre apart.
The government is expected to approve emergency measures worth around €10bn (£8.7bn), said industry minister Stefano Patuanelli.
More than 300 of Italy's fatalities are in the Lombardy region - which includes the country's financial capital, Milan.
About 5% of confirmed cases in Italy have been fatal so far, making the fatality rate higher than in other parts of the world, where scientists have tentatively estimated it to be between 1-3%. The fatality rate in Lombardy stands at 6%.
Dr Giovanni Rezza, head of infectious disease at the National Institutes of Health, attributed the high rate to the fact that Italy has the world's oldest population after Japan, and the median age of its virus-related dead is 80.
But it is not clear how long the virus had been circulating in the country before it was detected, which could contribute to the apparently higher fatality rate. And there are young people who are infected too.
Meanwhile, six inmates have died and several others have climbed on to the roof of a jail following protests across various prisons in Italy over limits on direct contact between inmates and their families.
In the south, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania and Molise have seen just dozens of COVID-19 cases between them and a handful of deaths.
In a bid to deter a mass influx, southern regions have warned people who do arrive from northern red zones that they have to go into quarantine for two weeks.
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More than 3,900 people have died across the world, the vast majority in mainland China, the epicentre of the outbreak.
"Now that the virus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real," said World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
But he welcomed Italy's tough measures, noting four countries - China, South Korea, Italy and Iran - accounted for 93% of cases worldwide.
In other coronavirus developments:
- China's President Xi Jinping has visited Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, as the country marked the third straight day of no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases outside of Hubei
- The president of the European Parliament Davide Sassoli is in self-isolation at his Brussels home as a precaution after travelling to Italy.
- Three new deaths have been recorded at the Life Care Center nursing home in Seattle, Washington state, which has been linked to 19 deaths in total
- Holidaymakers have been allowed to leave a Tenerife hotel after their period of quarantine ended
- Lebanon recorded its first virus-related death, according to broadcasters in the country
- Poland cancelled all large-scale events over the outbreak
- Czech Republic closed schools and banned events hosting more than 100 people
- Germany has announced its first two deaths - the country has more than 1,100 infections
- Madrid's regional president says all schools and universities in the region will close for two weeks
- In Ireland, all parades planned for St Patrick's Day on 17 March have been cancelled
- The coronavirus-hit Grand Princess cruise ship, which has more than 140 Britons on board, has arrived in port in Oakland, California
- Iran has temporarily released about 70,000 prisoners as coronavirus cases have surged
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