Italian towns put into quarantine over virus

Police can enforce restrictions on movement, warns prime minister

A dozen towns in Northern Italy have been put into quarantine after the government introduced "extraordinary measures" to cope with the biggest outbreak of the coronavirus in Europe.

Some 50,000 people in the regions of Lombardy, the area that includes Milan, and Veneto, which includes Venice, have been asked to stay home following the deaths of two Italian citizens.

A 78-year-old man in Veneto who had the virus subsequently died, and the postmortem carried out on a 77-year-old woman in Lombardy also showed she had the virus, although it has not yet been proven that it caused her death.

On Saturday Veneto's regional president, Luca Zaia, said trying to establish a link between cases in Italy and the initial outbreak in China was pointless as the virus now appears to be transmittable like any normal case of flu.

"You can get it from anyone," he told reporters. "We can expect to have cases of patients who had no contact (with suspected carriers)." He also emphasized that the mortality rate is low, and tended to be greater among those with existing medical conditions.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced that unless special permission had been given, entering or leaving affected areas would be forbidden, with the police having powers to ensure measures are enforced.

Four matches in Italy's Serie A soccer league, in Milan, Turin, Venice and Bergamo, were postponed on Sunday as a result of the restrictions on movement, and schools will also be closed.

While new cases and death rates in China now seem to be slowing down, it is the incidence of cases in places that appear to have no direct link to that original outbreak that is causing the World Health Organization the biggest concern, with its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying his fear is how countries with less efficient health systems than China would handle any outbreak.

So far, hotspots for the virus have included South Korea, a cruise liner docked at the Japanese port of Yokohama, and Iran, which has the highest death rate outside China, with an eighth fatality recorded on Sunday, and the outbreak in Iran is working its way into neighboring countries.

On Saturday the United Arab Emirates confirmed an Iranian tourist and his wife as its latest cases, taking the total to 13, and on Friday Lebanon reported its first confirmed infection, in a woman who had just returned from Iran.

"The schools are closed. The seminaries are closed, concerts, film screenings cancelled to stop large numbers of people congregating," said Al Jazeera reporter Assed Baig in Teheran.

"Now on state TV, they've been showing videos of how to wear face masks properly and how people can wash their hands."