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COVID-19: World must act ‘to prevent a potential pandemic’ says WHO after Italy deaths – Watch
9:18 CAT | 25 Feb 2020
Photo: Euronews
Countries must act over the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak “to prevent a potential pandemic,” the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday as it called Italy’s sudden spike in deaths “deeply concerning.”
Italian authorities have confirmed five deaths from the virus as experts try to understand the biggest cluster of infections in any country outside Asia. Italy is the first EU member state to see citizens die from COVID-19; a 75-year-old woman from Lombardy died on Saturday, following the death of a man, 78, from Veneto.
The EU has pledged €230 million to fight the outbreak in Italy and elsewhere but said it would not yet impose restrictions on travel or trade.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom told reporters in Geneva that the epidemic has been “declining steadily” since peaking between January 23 and February 2.
He said the time was “not right” to declare COVID-19 a pandemic, and that it was already a public health emergency — the highest level of alarm.
“Using the word pandemic now does not fit the facts,” he said, “but it certainly causes panic. Using the word won’t prevent a single infection or save a single life.”
The WHO has no evidence of “uncontained global spread,” he said, but COVID-19 “absolutely” has the potential to become a pandemic.
Authorities will continue to monitor the outbreak “while doing everything we can to prevent a potential pandemic,” he said, calling the cluster of deaths in Italy and South Korea “deeply concerning.”
Meanwhile, Italians travelling overseas were feeling the effects of a crackdown. A bus from Milan was encircled by police in the French city of Lyon amid reports a passenger was suspected of having symptoms. The French national health agency would only say that officials were “evaluating the situation.”
“We are aware that the authorities are currently on site at the Lyon bus station,” a spokeswoman for Flixbus told Euronews. “We cannot confirm that this is a case of the coronavirus. FlixBus is monitoring the situation around the coronavirus with the utmost care and is in close communication with the authorities.”
Italy grapples with the spread of COVID-19
Italy has now reported at least 219 cases, and at least ten towns in the north of the country were put on lockdown following a cluster of COVID-19 cases.
Police are manning checkpoints around quarantined towns, and police also stepped in to regulate customer queues at some supermarkets, as people stockpiled food in the wake of the lockdown order.
Italy’s Civil Protection chief Angelo Borrelli urged Italians to abide by the containment measures for the two week quarantine period.
“If in a certain area at first there was a recommendation and then an obligation to stay put, we are respecting that and it will be good for us and good for others,”said Borrelli.
Many of the new cases represented the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion.
Some of the cases came at the same hospital in Codogno, one of the Lombardy towns now on lockdown.
The mayor of Codogno issued a decree ordering the closure of all restaurants, coffee bars, schools and public gathering spots such as discos and gyms. The health ministry advised area residents to stay home as a precaution.
A 38-year-old man was hospitalised there and his wife and a friend have also contracted it. Five medical staff, including nurses and doctors, have also tested positive.
The sudden increase in the number of cases prompted authorities to suspend events related to the famous Venice carnival.
Veneto regional Governor Luca Zaia said the carnival shutdown would begin on Sunday evening. The event, which draws tens of thousands of visitors annually, was scheduled to end on Tuesday.
Austria’s railway company announced on Sunday evening that it had stopped all rain traffic to and from Italy over coronavirus fears.
Local officials in another town, Casalpusterlengo, ordered local schools closed through Tuesday.
A third town, Castiglione d’Adda, said its libraries, public offices, gyms and garbage depots would be closed as a health precaution.
Despite the calls for safeguards, Italians were having a hard time finding protective face masks. A sampling of Milan pharmacies reported selling out weeks ago, as did a pharmacist in Codogno.
Local Italian media said on Saturday that at least 10 towns were effectively locked down: Casalpusterlengo, Codogno, Castiglione d’Adda, Fombio, Maleo, Somaglia, Bertonico, Terranova dei Passerini, Castelgerundo and San Fiorano.
Individual cities outside the area covered by the ordinance, such as Cremona, issued their own restrictions after confirming there were local cases.
‘Cluster of cases’
Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said Italy is now seeing the same sort of cluster of cases that Germany and France have seen.
The Italian Health Ministry ordered anyone who came into direct contact with the three to be quarantined for 14 days.
About 150 people, including medical personnel, were in isolation undergoing tests.
Veneto regional president Zaia said that the contagion showed that the virus is transmitted like any flu and that trying to pinpoint a single source for the cases or to establish a link to China no longer were effective containment measures.
“You can get it from anyone,” he told reporters. “We can expect to have cases of patients who had no contact” with suspected carriers. While the virus isn’t particularly lethal, it can be for the elderly or people with existing conditions, he said.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte held an emergency cabinet meeting with the Civil Protection on Saturday.
Conte declared the mandatory isolation of all people who were in contact with those who tested positive for the coronavirus and said the government was examining further measures to contain the outbreak.
More evacuees return to France
British authorities also announced on Sunday that four new people had been diagnosed with the virus, bringing the total of number of cases in the UK to 13.
“The virus was passed on in the Diamond Princess cruise ship and the patients are being transferred from Arrowe Park to specialist NHS infection centres,” Public Health England said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a new plane repatriating 28 French people and 36 other EU citizens left Wuhan, China, on Friday, a diplomatic source confirmed to AFP.
The French evacuees will stay in quarantine in Calvados in Normandy.
This was the third plane sent from Paris to Wuhan, which has been under strict quarantine measures preventing travel for about a month.
This article has been corrected to say that ten towns are on lockdown. An earlier version said that there were twelve.
Source: Euronews
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