Italy, reeling from coronavirus outbreak, discovers what it’s like for Chinese

Italy – which has reported 11 deaths and more than 300 cases – has locked down 11 towns amid Europe’s biggest outbreak

Italians now face stricter travel measures in some places abroad, weeks after their government imposed a ban on flights to and from China

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A masked reveller takes part in the ‘Plague Procession’ on Saint Mark Square in Venice, during the usual period of the Carnival festivities which have been cancelled following an outbreak of the Covid-19 novel coronavirus in northern Italy. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:31pm, 26 Feb 2020Updated: 7:35pm, 5 Mar 2020

Italy was the first European Union country to ignore the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) advice not to ban flights to and from China because of the coronavirus outbreak. Now, with a whole Italian region on lockdown, is Rome regretting that decision?

“I’ve had people ask me in the past few weeks: ‘why we don’t just stop the flights from China?’,” the UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Tuesday.

“The Italians did that, and now they have the largest outbreak in Europe.”

With more than 325 cases, including 11 fatalities, Italy’s northern industrial and financial powerhouse has emerged as epicentre of Europe’s coronavirus outbreak. And while the source of the contagion has yet to be confirmed, most of the people who have contracted the disease are Italian.

A man wearing a protective mask travels on Milan's metro. Photo: EPA

“The block on flights was not such a wise decision because at the end of the day the Italian authorities lost the ability to track the people coming back from China,” said Marco Wong, a local councillor in the Tuscan town of Prato.

Due to its large textile industry, Prato has the highest concentration of Chinese migrants in Italy – and not one single reported case coronavirus, at least not yet.

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