Quarantined Italian towns are buckling under the strain, major cities are emptying out and some of those infected say they are being stigmatised as Europe’s worst outbreak of coronavirus takes hold.
As of Thursday night, 3,858 cases had been detected as
Italy aggressively tests for the virus. Out of that number, 148 people have died and 414 have recovered. Of those infected, 1,790 are in hospital – 351 in intensive care – and 1,115 are recovering at home.
Eleven towns are under lockdown – 10 in Lombardy and one in Veneto – and
schools have been closed across the country as the government tries to contain a virus about which there are still many unknowns.
Stories that have emerged since the outbreak began reflect the contrasting nature of the virus’s impact, from the reassuring accounts of people cured to the suffering of those who have died or are in a critical condition. The heavily pregnant wife of “patient one”, the 38-year-old man who was Italy’s first confirmed locally transmitted case, was dismissed from hospital on Thursday; her husband, a marathon runner and amateur footballer, remains in intensive care.
The dead,
mostly elderly and with underlying health problems, are buried quickly without ceremony to mitigate the risk of infection posed by their corpses. The living have become wary of those with even the slightest cough.
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