(Italy)Grande Italia set to emulate China and quarantine entire cities- and even provinces

[ohmrlobalobayeh]

Coronavirus: Northern Italy to quarantine 16 million people


Italy's prime minister has said at least 16 million people are in mandatory quarantine in Lombardy region and also in 14 provinces.

The lock-down will last until early April.

The dramatic escalation in the country's efforts to contain the new coronavirus will close gyms, pools, museums and ski resorts.

Italy is Europe's worst-hit country and reported a steep rise in virus infections on Saturday.

The new measures, which also apply to financial centre Milan and tourist hotspot Venice will last until 3 April.

The death toll in Italy has passed 230, with officials reporting more than 50 deaths in 24 hours. The number of confirmed cases jumped by more than 1,200 to 5,883 on Saturday.

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image captionPeople queue to buy food in Milan as quarantine measures are announced
The whole northern region of Lombardy, home to 10 million people and Italy's financial centre Milan, will be closed off except to emergency access, and 14 provinces including Venice, Parma and Modena will be subject to the same measures - affecting a total of around 16 million people.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the provinces affected were Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Rimini, Pesaro and Urbino, Alessandria, Asti, Novara, Verbano Cusio Ossola, Vercelli, Padua, Treviso and Venice.

Until now only around 50,000 people in northern Italy had been affected by quarantine measures.

What are the measures?
Night clubs, gyms, swimming pools, museums and ski resorts will be closed.

Restaurants and cafes can open but customers must sit at least a metre apart.

People will be told to stay home as much as possible, and those who break the quarantine could face three months in jail.

Sports competitions will close to the public, and the president of Italy's football players' union has called for all matches to be postponed.

The World Health Organization has advised Italy to strongly focus on virus containment measures as infections spread in the country.

The plans echo China's forced quarantine of millions of people which the WHO has praised for halting the spread of the virus.

Leading Italian politician Nicola Zingaretti said on Saturday he had tested positive for the virus.

"I am fine but I will have to stay home for the next few days," the leader of Italy's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) said in a Facebook post.

The country has said it will start recruiting retired doctors in an effort to combat the escalating outbreak.

'Highest priority'
Elsewhere, Iran has confirmed almost 6,000 infections and 145 deaths, and the number of cases worldwide has passed 100,000, officials say.

A second MP was reportedly among those to have died in Iran, where health officials fear the number of cases may actually be much higher.

 

[ohmrlobalobayeh]

Italy set to quarantine whole of Lombardy due to coronavirus


Government’s draft decree would impose fines on anyone caught entering or leaving northern region

Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo

@lorenzo_tondo
Sat 7 Mar 2020 20.57 GMTLast modified on Sun 8 Mar 2020 00.11 GMT

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The deserted Piazza Duomo in Milan. Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/AFP via Getty Images
The Italian government is to lockdown the northern region of Lombardy, as it battles to contain the spread of the coronavirus. A draft decree would extend the quarantined areas, so-called “red-zones”, ordering people not to enter or leave the region.

The country is grappling to contain Europe’s worst outbreak of Covid-19, which has claimed 233 lives and infected a total of 5,883 people.

Italian authorities announced that a new decree containing draconian measures would be approved later on Saturday. It will include the power to impose fines on anyone caught entering or leaving Lombardy, the worst-affected region, until 3 April. People may be allowed in and out for serious reasons. The decree provides for banning all public events, closing cinemas, theatres, gyms, discos and pubs. Religious ceremonies such as funerals and weddings will also be banned.

Rome is also considering prolonging the closure of schools across the country until 3 April, while major sporting events, such as Serie A football games, will be played behind closed doors.

The number of coronavirus cases in Italy leapt by more than 1,200 in a 24-hour period, the civil protection agency said on Saturday. It is the biggest daily rise since the outbreak began two weeks ago.

The number of cases in the country rose to 5,883 on Saturday from 4,636 announced on Friday, with the spread showing little sign of slowing. In total there are now 5,061 cases, not including those who have died or recovered.

The northern regions of Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto are the hardest hit, representing 85% of cases and 92% of recorded deaths.

“We will win this battle if our citizens adopt a responsible attitude and change their way of living,” the head of Italy’s civil protection agency, Angelo Borrelli, told a press conference.

The outbreak is severely damaging the Italian economy, with warnings that the tourism sector alone could experience €7.4bn (£6.4bn) of losses during this trimester.

 

[ARMalik]

Well this is just another milestone to achieve the Global Orwellian state. With all due respects, China is already an Orwellian state. Italy is following suite as an experiment for EU.