últimas notícias

On Sunday night on a road outside Casalpusterlengo, one of the locked-down towns, police officers in surgical masks halted cars, asking what business they had in the town. The officers suggested that motorists take an alternate route and urged them against going any further.

Most of the drivers didn’t need much convincing.

Bahije Mounia, a 42-year-old caretaker from a nearby town who wore a surgical mask, turned right back around. She said the government should have let people in the area know how dangerous things were much earlier. With the spike of cases in the region, she said, “It’s almost like we’re in China.”

The exaggeration could be forgiven considering the dramatic turn of events in Italy in recent days.

What had seemed like a contained few cases spread throughout the country’s wealthy north. So did the precautions.

People wore surgical masks in Aosta, which is on the Swiss border. Officials in the Piedmont region closed schools in Turin, and Venice cut its Carnival short. The patriarch of Venice, the Reverend Francesco Moraglia, suspended all religious ceremonies, including Ash Wednesday celebrations that mark the beginning of Lent.

At least two trade fairs in Milan, cornerstones of the city’s economy, were postponed. But the women’s fashion shows, except for those by Armani, continued on schedule on Sunday to large crowds, with few wearing masks, The Associated Press reported. The Giorgio Armani fashion house made a last-minute decision to stream its shows from empty theaters.

Two elderly people who tested positive for the coronavirus were in intensive care at Venice’s municipal hospital.

In the regional capital of Milan, officials closed museums, schools, its cathedral, and halted religious and cultural events. Many other venues, aside from those providing essential services, have been closed, including most bars and nightclubs.