The Wall Street Journal - 06.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, March 6, 2020 |A

WORLD NEWS

In Milan’s historic Savini
restaurant, between the city’s
Duomo cathedral and La Scala
opera house, just three of 20
tables had customers on a re-

cent evening, and the normally
bustling pedestrian streets
nearby were sparsely trod.
The dearth of visitors in It-
aly’s financial capital offers a
glimpse into how the new coro-

ByGiovanni Legorano

in Rome andEric

Sylversin Milan

HowtheCoronavirusSpreadbyAir

WuhanhasbeenamajorbeneficiaryofChina’stransportation-infrastructureexpansion—andsohasthenew

coronavirus.InternationalflightsfromthiscentralChinesecitydidn’tbeginuntil2000.ByJanuary,Wuhan

wasconnectedwiththeglobe.OncethevirusappearedaroundaWuhanseafoodmarket,itdidn’thaveto

travelfartoreachmuchoftheworld.

10

50

150

300

Numberofflights

Bangkok

To k y o

MacauMacau HHong KongongKong

Osaka

Singapore

Kota Kinabalu

SSeouleoul

Phuket

HHo Chi Minh CityoChiMinhCity

Nagoya

Kaohsiung

Taipei

SSihanoukvilleihanoukville

DDubaiubai

Denpasar

Sydney

SSiem ReapiemReap

MMoscowoscow

Chiang Mai

London

Mandalay

Yangon

KKrabirabi

Kuala Lumpur

gkokgThailaghakkokokkkkkkilalalandndnnnndndd

JJaJaJanJaaaaannn1nnnnn.1 111 ChChChCCCCCC

Jan. 2a (^22220222220000000000000) Jan. 15Jan. 15.1 5
WWuhanuhan
San Francisco
New York City
Paris
Rome
To k y o
HongKong
Macau
SSingaporeingapore
Kota Kinabalu
Phuket
Ho Chi Minh City
Kaohsiung
Taipei
DDubaiubai
Denpasar
SiemReap
Krabi
JJJan. 12JaJJJ
JaJaJJJJaJJJJJaJJJaJJJJaaapppppppanan
Jan. 2JJanJanJanJanJan. 20Jan. 20Jan.nnn.n. JaJan. 15JJan. 15anan. 15
Wuhan
BBangkokangkok
HHong KongongKong
MMacauacau
PPhukethuket
KKaohsiungaohsiung
SSihanoukvilleihanoukville
SSiem ReapiemReap
CChiang MaihiangMai
MMandalayandalay
YYangonangon
KKrabirabi
SSydneyydney
OOsakasaka
SSeouleoul
NNagoyaagoya
First case: Jan. 20
SOUTHKOREA
First case: Jan. 15
JAPAN
First case: Jan. 12
THAILAND
ThailandandJapan—themostpopulardestinations—andSouthKorea
sawthefirstcoronaviruscasesoutsidemainlandChina
WuhanTianheInternationalAirport:24.5millionpassengers,
30-plusinternationaldestinations
IIstanbulstanbul
IIstanbulstanbul
Moscow
Yasufumi Saito, Andrew James and
Sources: FlightConnections; staff reports Rosa de Acosta/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Note: Bangkok and Taipei figures are total of 2 airports.
Some cities have seasonal flights to and from Wuhan that are not represented here.
Data for December 2019–January 2020
navirus is hitting demand for
goods and services. It could be
a harbinger of recessions in It-
aly and the European Union as
the epidemic expands.
Italian companies face can-
celed orders from foreign cus-
tomers and disrupted interna-
tional supply chains as Chinese
production grinds to a halt. But
the fall in consumer spending
poses possibly the biggest risk
for the EU’s third-biggest econ-
omy—if Italian households keep
curbing buying and foreign
tourists stop coming for a sus-
tained period.
“The drop in demand is very
worrying,” said Francesco Dav-
eri, an economist at Milan’s Boc-
coni University. “The likelihood
that Italy falls into recession de-
pends more on demand than on
supply-chain problems.”
Italian consulting firm Prom-
eteia forecasts that the econ-
omy will contract 0.3% in the
first quarter following a 0.3%
contraction in the 2019 final
quarter, indicating a recession.
The eurozone’s outlook is
getting bleaker too, with econo-
mists cutting forecasts and
some saying the bloc will also
likely enter into a recession in
the first half of the year.
New-car sales in Italy, a
leading economic indicator, fell
8.8% in February. About 60% of
car dealers expect sales to fall
in the next three to four
months, says research firm
Centro Studi Promotor.
The government this week
said it would spend €7.5 billion
($8.35 billion) to support the
economy and health sector. Of-
ficials are talking with unions
and business lobbies to decide
how the stimulus will be spent.
The possibilities include the ex-
tension of unemployment bene-
fits, temporary tax breaks,
funds for hospitals and spend-
ing directed at areas most hit
by the virus.
Italy’s coronavirus outbreak,
first detected around Feb. 20,
has become the world’s biggest
outside Asia, involving 148
deaths and more than 3,800 in-
fections as of Thursday, with
hundreds more testing positive
daily. Almost 90% of virus cases
have been in the regions of
Lombardy, Veneto and Emilia
Romagna, which account for
40% of the country’s economic
output.
Even in Rome, which has
only a few confirmed virus in-
fections, locals and foreign visi-
tors are retrenching. Lorenzo
Bernardi, a Roman taxi driver,
now waits about half an hour
between fares rather than the
usual five to 10 minutes.
“I have never seen so few
tourists in Rome,” said Mr. Ber-
nardi.
Lingering Fallout of Virus Puts Italy at Risk of Recession
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