Italy bans travel in bid to slow virus deaths

Rome: Italy banned travel and shut down a range of industries Monday in a last-ditch push to stem the spread of a coronavirus that has killed nearly 5,500 people in a month.
The latest wave of restrictions is designed to get the Mediterranean country through a vital 10-day stretch in which the rate of deaths and infections is supposed to finally drop.
Italy’s health officials sounded notes of guarded hope after reporting another 651 fatalities on Sunday.
The figure was the second-highest recorded during the crisis and above that officially registered anywhere else in the world in a day.
But it was still lower than the record 793 deaths health officials announced on Saturday. The number of new infections also rose Sunday by a relatively modest 10.4 percent.
The chief health officer of northern Italy’s devastated Lombardy region sounded uncharacteristically upbeat Sunday. “These figures are always a matter of either seeing the glass as half full or half empty,” Giulio Gallera wrote on Facebook. “Today, the glass is half full.”
Italy has sacrificed its economy and liberties by shutting down and banning almost everything to halt the spread of a virus the government views as an existential threat.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte took the extra step late Saturday of announcing plans to close “non-essential” factories and trades until April 3.
Ministers and health experts are all looking at the daily death toll and infection rates to see if their approach has worked.
Other nations are watching also, as they calibrate their response to a virus whose spread is currently being fought by measures that are restricting people’s freedoms and devastating economies.
Both local and national officials pleaded with Italians while announcing their restrictions to sacrifice their liberties for the common good for two weeks.
The two-week deadline in Lombardy expired on Sunday. (AFP)