ROME — Italians were reprimanded on Wednesday for failing to respect home confinement rules to curb the spread of the coronavirus, as deaths linked to the pandemic jumped to nearly 3,000.
“Perhaps you haven’t understood it, but every time you leave home you are a risk to yourselves and to others,” the president of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, said at a news conference.
Italy is facing the biggest coronavirus outbreak in the world outside China, and Lombardy, a wealthy northern region where Milan is located, is the country’s flashpoint.
Yet in the region, “40% of people are continuing to move around anyway,” regional Health Commissioner Giulio Gallera told RAI public television.
The figure was provided by mobile phone operators, Gallera said, dismissing privacy concerns as he insisted that the data was anonymized.
“Nobody is checking (on people) Big Brother-style,” he said.
The nation’s death toll from the virus rose by 475, a single-day record that brought the total to 2,978, according to a daily bulletin provided by the Civil Protection Agency.
However, the total number of infections rose at a slower pace. They increased to 35,713, up 13% from Tuesday. Last week, the daily numbers were increasing by some 17 to 21%.
Even more encouragingly, the overall figures included a 37% jump in recoveries, to 4,025. Among those who are still infected, 2,257 were in intensive care.
“We are still in a phase in which we cannot yet see the benefits (of lockdown measures), it will take another few days,” the head of the National Health Institute, Silvio Brusaferro, said.
“But above all we are in a phase in which we cannot relax,” he added.
Sports Minister Vincenzo Spadafora separately told RAI that the government would “consider further measures,” like banning jogging, because large numbers of people “seem to be absolutely underestimating the risks.”
All of Italy has been under lockdown since March 10, with people authorized to leave their homes only if they cannot work at home or for urgent errands like buying food or medicine.
The Interior Ministry said police stopped more than 1 million people between March 11 and 17, and pressed charges against nearly 45,000 rule-breakers.
In Milan, there were reports of underground trains being full during rush hour, and of people still gathering in parks and other public spaces.
“That’s not good, that’s not good,” Gallera said in a news conference.
Lombardy accounts for around half of Italy’s coronavirus cases and around two-thirds of its fatalities. The region’s hospitals are near breaking point, particularly in the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia.
“Soon we will no longer be in a condition to attend to those who are falling sick,” Fontana said.
While scrambling to expand intensive care facilities, the authorities are battling with shortages of equipment, including ventilators and face masks. Doctors and nurses are overstretched.
Infections among medical personnel are putting a further strain on the health system. So far, 2,629 medical professionals have become infected, and many of these cases have been blamed on a lack of adequate protective gear.
The COVID-19 disease claimed the lives of eight doctors in the past seven days, all in Lombardy, the professional association FNOMCeO said.
“Bergamo’s hospitals are absolutely exhausted,” Mayor Giorgio Gori told RAI. More medical supplies are on the way, but “what we are missing is doctors and nurses,” he reported.
Deaths in the Bergamo area in the first half of March quadrupled compared with the same period of 2019, Gori said, adding that the province’s official COVID-19 death toll was being underestimated.
“We know of many elderly people who died at home or in hospices who unfortunately are not counted in the statistics because they don’t get tested” for the coronavirus, Gori said.
Amid the crisis, opposition leader Matteo Salvini said all lawmakers from his far-right League party were donating part of their parliamentary salaries to help fight the pandemic.
First Published: March 19, 2020, 5:00 a.m.
