Coronavirus crisis ebbs in China, Italy considers new quarantine zones
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Deaths in Italy surged to 79, making it the deadliest reported outbreak outside China. Twenty-three members of Iran’s Parliament and the head of the country’s emergency services were reported infected.
South Korea expanded drive-thru testing and confirmed hundreds of new cases. And in Spain’s Basque region, at least five doctors and nurses were infected and nearly 100 health care workers were being held in isolation.
The mushrooming outbreaks contrasted with optimism in China, where thousands of recovered patients were going home and the number of new infections has been dropping.
Worldwide, more than 93,000 people have been infected and over 3,100 have died, the vast majority of them in China. The number of countries hit by the virus exceeded 70, with Ukraine and Morocco reporting their first cases.
Tensions over how to contain the coronavirus escalated Tuesday in the United States as the death toll climbed to nine and lawmakers expressed doubts about the government’s ability to ramp up testing fast enough to deal with the crisis.
All of the deaths have occurred in Washington state, and most were residents of a nursing home in suburban Seattle. The number of infections in the U.S. overall climbed past 100, scattered across at least 15 states, with 27 cases in Washington alone.
“What is happening now in the United States may be the beginning of what is happening abroad,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noting that in China, where the outbreak began more than two months ago, older and sicker people are about twice as likely to become seriously ill as those who are younger and healthier. Most cases have been mild.
Officials in New York said on Monday that industrial-grade disinfectants would be used to clean everything from train cars to MetroCard machines every 72 hours. “The safety of our customers and employees is our first priority as we continue to monitor the coronavirus,” said Patrick T. Warren, chief safety officer at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
From Monday evening to midday Tuesday, transit workers disinfected nearly all of the system’s 472 subway stations, more than 1,900 subway cars and nearly 2,000 buses, officials said. Transit officials in neighboring New Jersey, which has its own vast commuter rail and bus network, have also ramped up its cleaning regimen.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends keeping essential services like public transit in operation, in part so that health care workers and other emergency responders can get to work.
Sanitization operations of the courtrooms at the Milan Tribunal after two judges were infected with the coronavirus, in Milan, Italy, 03 March 2020. Two magistrates working in Milan were tested positive for the Coronavirus and are now in isolation. EPA-EFE/Mourad Balti Touati
Italy’s health authorities are considering setting up a new quarantine red zone to try to contain the coronavirus outbreak in Europe’s worst-hit country, after the death toll and the number of cases jumped.
The increase in deaths in Italy was the largest since the outbreak surfaced 12 days ago in the wealthy northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto.
It remains centred in the north, with Lombardy by far the worst affected, but it has since spread south and infections have now been confirmed in all but one of Italy’s 20 regions.
Shortly after the contagion first came to light on February 20, the government imposed a quarantine on two areas – one encompassing 10 Lombardy towns southeast of Milan, and another, smaller red zone in the region of Veneto to the east.
A high concentration of new cases has emerged around the city of Bergamo, northeast of the financial capital Milan, and the head of the National Health Institute told reporters a new red zone may be imposed there to try to stem the rise.
Among the new cases announced on Tuesday were two magistrates who worked in Milan’s courtroom and a newborn baby in Bergamo. It was not clear how the child contracted the virus.
