You can read full coverage of the coronavirus impact on Italy on SwimSwam Italia.
Updated since original publishing:
As of Monday, March 9th, Italy has become the first nation to place its entire territory under quarantine in an effort to contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that the ‘red zone’ quarantine previously only applicable to the north of Italy will now be imposed on the entire nation, meaning travel to, from and within Italy is only possible if ‘demonstrably necessary for work or health reasons.’
Per The Wall Street Journal ($), the nationwide quarantine also means employees are urged to take vacation and stay home; bars and restaurants must close at 6pm; and virtually all public gatherings are banned. Additionally, people must keep a distance of at least one meter (3 feet) between themselves at all gathering places.
“I decided to adopt even stronger, stricter measures to be able to contain the spread of the virus as much as possible,” Mr. Conte said at a news conference. “I’m aware of how serious this is, but I am forced to intervene even more decisively to protect all of us, and especially those who are more weak and vulnerable.”
As of Monday, 9,172 cases of infection within Italy had been confirmed, of whom 463 had died.
Original Article:
The impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is continually unfolding, as we reported today that the Italian Olympic Trials originally slated to begin on March 17th have been cancelled. Additionally, Italian teams are restricted from competing at international events, although the specific data parameters are not yet spelled out.
These measures were taken after the Italian government had enacted new, stricter restrictions on travel within the nation due to the COVID-19 conditions. This involved defining a ‘red zone’, which blocked all travel to and from Itay’s northern regions in the heart of the country’s outbreak.
However, starting Tuesday, March 10th, athletes ‘of national interest’ will be able to return to train in the Lazio region. This means that certain athletes, despite living in the red zone, will be able to leave and train in the general area around the city of Rome as long as they provide certification they are in good health.
The specific ordinance, which you can read here, specifies the following:
Professional and non-professional athletes recognized by the respective federations of national interest are authorized to carry out training sessions at sports facilities (in the manner indicated by art.2, letter g of the Prime Minister’s Decree of 8 March 2020).
Among those who train in Lazio include Gregorio Paltrinieri, Gabriele Detti and Simona Quadarella.
Prayers for the athletes, that they get to continue their journey.
Are Athletes at risk for this?
No athletes cannot contract coronavirus
Actually, China did quite well. They locked down an area that equals by population that of Italy, and are now out of the woods.
This had to be done on account of the number of people this virus sends to hospital. Our health system, especially in the Lombardy region, is under incredible pressure. By limiting movement and social contacts, numbers will go down. Hopefully.
Israel requires every person entering the country to stay in quarantine for 14 days. That’s a lock down as well essentially.
It’s a lock down in a sense, though it’s certainly not as extreme as Italy’s.
It’s also a much easier thing to implement in Israel given the closed boarders.
this could be just the beginning, many other countries could be in the same position in a few weeks..
Wonder when the US will actually start taking this as a crisis domestically (cause tax cuts Trump and people having to pay to be tested won’t solve) and stop acting like it is nothing (seriously no one know how many cases you guys have now)
We’ve had 26 deaths in the US, what do you suggest? Go door to door testing people? Companies are scanning people’s temperature as they enter or having them work from home. Travel is suspended, corporate events and conferences cancelled. What’s Brazil doing about this?
Somebody took it as personal
Well we at least are doing tests for free, have kits for testing and are not avoiding disclosing information.
Maybe just maybe you could actually make the test free and allow people who are sick to have sick leave cause you know that is how it should be done
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/08/nyregion/coronavirus-newyork.html
Not sure referring to statements a governor from NY is representative of all the precautions taken in the US.
Sure I take it personal, we are turning our lives upside down for something that hasn’t proven itself to be as dangerous as the response. Also, to insinuate nothing is being done test wise isn’t accurate. The CDC has been working on it, however state that they need samples from patients who had it at least 21 days after their symptoms first started so it takes time. I would love for everyone to be tested for free so we can move on. Gov Cuomo makes good points about the gridlock, but it’s inherent in government organizations.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/testing.html
1 of every 20 people in Italy that have been infected with it have died. Spain went from less than 500 cases to more than 1000 overnight. I don’t know how you can’t say this doesn’t warrant a severe response.
https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-testing-covid-19-tests-per-capita-chart-us-behind-2020-3 maybe because US is actually doing way way less than other countries..
Countries like South Korea that treated this seriously from the jump are seeing reductions in cases every day, but Iran, who initially treated this as an election interference, and Italy, who brushed it off as a common flu, are suffering. There are no more ICU beds or ventilators in Lombardy, and the Iranian government is in meltdown mode. We need a severe response to this. One person infected 23 other people riding the NY metro. An outbreak only needs one person to catch it and a lack of vigilance to start a pandemic.
I suspect that now that a U.S. Congressman, who had handshake contact with a COVID-19 positive person (and is now self-quarantined) was on Air Force one with the President today — with all that great air recirculation — we’ll start taking it seriously. Better late, albeit by a month, than never.
I guess we’ll see in a week or two who if anybody got sick on that flight and if so to what extent.
Wouldn’t count on transparency. But if they start dropping like flies like the Iranian officials, we’ll know.
All of the air in an airplane is recirculated every 90 seconds. Used to be every 45 seconds years ago but was changed to save on fuel costs. But most people think everyone breathes the same air for the whole flight which is absolutely not true.
Wow! This is the largest European lockdown on people’s freedom of movement since the fall of the Iron Curtain thirty-one years ago in 1989. Stay well, pardners!
Thank you Italy! Makes so much more sense than China letting everyone fly around to almost every country to infect everyone. If china had done this initially, we wouldnt be in this mess. Much love and respect to Italy. Wishing everyone (in gerneral) the best to avoid the virus or recover if already contaminated.
Dude, every country is in a different shoe. Now let’s assume China did lock down the country. You will probably be saying discriminative stuff about that decision. When you are on a swimming website, just chill and respect the athletes.
Who said I was against China? I pointed out china becasue that is where the virus started and has the most cases of the virus. I am for whatever can be done to protect innocent lives. I dont care if it was China, Australia, US, Russia, or any other country that started the virus. Once they realized that the Virus was highly contagious and deadly, that country should have shutdown all traveling to stop it from spreading to everywhere else in the world.
Also, no where am I disrespecting the athletes. I am just happy that Italy is doing something to try to stop the spread of the virus.
Italy’s already been letting people fly all over the world for a month or so now. There’s been heaps of news reports of Italians testing positive in other countries not long after they arrived there including a all those people in one big lot in India. Italy also had far more advanced warning than China had and still failed spectacularly to contain the virus.
Who has shutdown traveling to and from their country and preventing their citizens from infecting people from other countries? Thats Italy. Who’s still allowing people with the disease from their country to travel to other countries resulting in more infected citizens? China.
My point is that once China found out that the virus was very contagious, deadly, and spreading quickly to other countries, they should have shutdown all traveling in and out of china. If they did, then Italy wouldn’t have gotten this bad. Even though there would still be people who have already left the country with the virus before they can shutdown, there would have been far less of them infecting the rest of the world than… Read more »