A22 eZ re the washington post.wednesday, march 11 , 2020
the coronavirus outbreak
BY CHICO HARLAN
AND STEFANO PITRELLIROME — Italy on Tuesday was a
country in quiet emergency: little
chatter, few hugs, few cars, no
sports, empty piazzas, vacated
restaurants and a deepening
sense that a prolonged period of
social isolation was the only way
to slow the coronavirus.
The Italian government an-
nounced more than 10,000 con-
firmed cases of the coronavirus
and more than 600 deaths as of
Tuesday evening. There were few-
er new cases reported than in
previous days, but the new figures
show the l argest single daily jump
in deaths.
The government’s historic or-
dering of a nationwide lockdown
— limiting the movement of
60 million people — has trans-
formed Italy into a testing ground
for not only what it might take to
control the virus, but also how
much a democracy is willing to
upend life’s most basic routines
and joys.
In Rome on Tuesday, the city
was moving at a crawl. People
teleworked or didn’t work at all;
they wore masks or wrapped
scarves around their m ouths; they
kept a suspicious distance from
others. They tried to drop the
habits that seemed suddenly dan-
gerous — the kiss greeting, the
chat at the cafe counter — even as
depression and deep financial
pain seemed like unavoidable side
effects of the lockdown.
“I’m mostly sealed indoors,”
said Ivano Canni, 49, a newsstand
owner, describing his sense, build-
ing for many other Italians as well,
that any social contact carries a
risk. “I’m trying to stand two me-
ters apart from others. I open my
door to let fresh air in for half an
hour or so, then c lose it back.”
Italy’s initial response to the
coronavirus outbreak had been to
try to preserve normalcy and limit
the economic sacrifices. But as
active cases have accelerated, the
approach has changed dramati-
cally, leading to restrictions on
movement unprecedented by a
democracy and new moves by
I taly’s neighbors to tighten or
close b orders.
On the first day of the nation-
wide lockdown, Italians appeared
to be largely heeding orders, fol-
lowing the pleas of Prime Minister
Giuseppe Conte, who said Italy’s
health system was at risk of being
overwhelmed if people continued
the changes were noticeable.
In t he center o f the city, a popu-
lar bakery removed most of its
tables, and only two people sat
inside, each sipping coffee alone.
At cafes, baristas wore gloves. At a
dentist’s office, a waiting room
was moved outdoors, and people
were told to remain six feet apart.
Many smaller stores shuttered,
and one boutique p osted the news
of its temporary closure on Insta-
gram with the hashtag #iorestoa-
casa, o r #imstayingathome. Muse-
ums were closed to visitors, and
the Vatican shut down St. Peter’s
Square.
“This is a historic moment at
the world l evel,” s aid Denise Mort-
era, 39, a wedding planner in a
country where weddings, like all
other public gatherings, are now
on hold until at least April 3.
“There is a bit of powerlessness
when facing a phenomenon that
is this big.”
And in a final blow to socializ-
ing, restaurants and bars were
ordered to close by 6 p.m. — about
three hours before Romans tend
to have dinner. Customers were
only allowed for lunch if they re-
mained three f eet apart.
The silence, were it for a single
day, might have felt like a respite.
But for many Romans, it came
with a sense of bleakness and fear.
At a pizzeria in the normally bus-
tling neighborhood of Prati, a
family of three was forced to split
itself between two tables — par-
ents at one table, daughter at an-
other — to obey the restrictions.
The other tables were empty.
“It’s a catastrophe,” t he restau-
rant owner, Fabrizio Cicchetti, 41,
said. “I need to pay taxes and
monthly contributions for em-
ployees. To day I was supposed to
pay the rent for these walls. The
owner c ame and I told him, ‘I have
no money.’ ”
The owner was understanding.
An official in Italy’s economic
ministry has said payments on
mortgages would be suspended
during the crisis, and the govern-
ment has pledged bailouts to help
with the financial losses. But Cic-
chetti said the damage would be
lasting in an emotional way, as
well.
“The thing that bothers me is
not being able to greet people with
kisses and hugs and handshakes,”
he said. “I don’t even trust myself
at t his point. I may have t ouched a
surface that is contaminated.”
[email protected]
[email protected]In Italy, lockdown upends basic routines and joys
Residents keep a suspicious distance amid government’s historic mandate to fight the outbreak
big m istake.”
Xi’s f irst stop Tuesday was Huo -
shenshan Hospital, which was
built in 10 days. State media said
he visited patients, but television
footage later showed a mask-clad
Xi, surrounded by military and
party officials, talking to a patient
by video.
“You should build your confi-
dence, we should together build
our confidence, and together we
will win t his w ar,” Xi told the m an,
who was in bed, wearing striped
pajamas, with two health-care
workers in head-to-toe protective
gear at h is side. “Wuhan must win,
Hubei must win, and the whole of
China m ust win,” Xi said.
He appeared to be speaking
from the Wuhan Workers’ S anato-
rium, a facility next to the pop-up
hospital.
He a lso talked to medical work-
ers and army officers outside the
building — standing a good 12 feet
away f rom them — and t o commu-
nity workers and volunteers.
“This is a critical moment and
you must clench your teeth and
hang on,” Xi told them. “Don’t
drop your guard, don’t relax. Payattention t o every detail of preven-
tion and control, and resolutely
win t he b attle,” s tate m edia quoted
him a s saying.
When he visited people stuck in
their apartments in Wuhan, local
authorities took steps to make
sure there would be no repeat of
the h eckling that Sun received last
week. Xi h as also come i n for heavy
criticism, with China’s Internet
lighting up with public criticism
and c alls f or more freedom u nseen
in Xi’s seven years in power, al-
though these posts were swiftly
deleted by c ensors.
People posted photos on social
media showing police officers sit-
ting on the balconies, saying two
officers had been dispatched to
each apartment to ensure residents
did not yell at Xi. The images could
not b e independently v erified.
Instead, the main news bulletin
on state broadcaster CCTV
showed people calling “Hello,
Chairman!” and waving from
their windows a t him as he walked
through an apartment complex,
and a smiling Xi saying “Hello,
everyone” back.
The visit was clearly a “victorytour,” said Ryan Manuel, managing
director of Official China, a consul-
tancy specializing in China’s do-
mestic political environment.
“He gave clear ‘important in-
structions’ in a way that showed
he would own this coronavirus
and the response,” Manuel said.
“This was very unusual and per-
sonal. He put his name to the
response, rather than making it
collective.”
A Communist Party magazine
last month stated that Xi knew
about the virus as early as Jan. 7,
more than two weeks before Wu-
han was locked down. But since
then, state media have portrayed
Xi, the most powerful Chinese
leader in decades, as very much in
charge.
The visit also appeared to be
designed to instill confidence in
the domestic economy, which this
quarter is predicted to fall well
below the 6 percent annual
growth r ate that t he p arty h as long
considered necessary to ensure
stability and l egitimacy.
Alarmed at the epidemic’s im-
pact on China’s slowing economy,
Xi has been prodding businessesacross the country to reopen and
trying to signal that things are
going back to normal — even in
Hubei.
Hubei is considering allowing
people in medium- or low-risk ar-
eas to resume traveling, the offi-
cial Hubei Daily reported Tuesday.
They w ould have to use a code t hat
requires users to submit health
information on their phones and
receive a “green” rating before
they can enter stores or board
public t ransportation.
Bill Bishop, publisher of the in-
fluential Sinocism n ewsletter, had
listed a Xi v isit t o Wuhan as one of
three “unmistakable signs the p ar-
ty thinks victory really is at hand.”
The other t wo were t he a nnounce-
ment of a new date for the post-
poned “two sessions” political
meetings, and the reopening of
schools shuttered since early Feb-
ruary.
There have been no signs of
dates being set for either of those
milestones.
[email protected]liu Yang and Wang Yuan in Beijing
contributed to this report.Xie huanchi/associated press
C hinese President Xi Jinping, right, is briefed about a Wuhan hospital in a highly choreographed visit Tuesday to Hubei province.BY ANNA FIFIELDChinese leader Xi Jinping went
on a carefully choreographed vic-
tory lap around Wuhan on Tues-
day, lauding the dedication and
tenacity of the Communist Party,
health-care workers and ordinary
people in defeating a coronavirus
he had labeled a “devil.”
His first visit to Wuhan, the
epicenter of the novel coronavirus
outbreak, comes as the number of
new infections in the country has
plummeted and was designed to
show the success of China’s re-
sponse — and contrast t hem favor-
ably against international efforts,
analysts said.
“Now things are getting better
and he wants to show that his
leadership has been successful,”
said Minxin Pei, a professor spe-
cializing in Chinese politics at
Clare mont McKenna College in
California. “ The messaging is that
we should see the West’s response
as bumbling a nd i ncompetent.”
Downward trends in China’s
epidemic statistics suggest that its
efforts have been effective. Only 1 9
new cases were reported Tuesday,
all but two of them in Hubei prov-
ince, of which Wuhan is the capi-
tal. Vast swaths of the province
have been locked down since Jan.
23 as authorities tried to contain
the novel coronavirus that causes
the d isease covid-19.
“It’s time to ‘pick the peaches’
and prove to the world that China
has effectively controlled the out-
break,” s aid Zhang Lifan, an inde-
pendent historian i n Beijing.
But the draconian restrictions
worked only after t he f lu-like virus
had infected more than 80,000
people and killed about 3,140 in
China, and had spread to dozens
of other countries.
Italy, South Korea and Iran have
been especially hard-hit, with Ita-
ly enforcing a nationwide lock-
down. Global markets tumbled to
their lowest levels in more than a
decade, and economists are pre-
dicting a global r ecession.
International experts say the
epidemic would have been more
manageable, and could have been
stopped from s preading a broad, i f
the authorities had responded in
early January, when the virus’s
severity became clear, rather than
toward the month’s e nd.
In China, however, where the
virus has posed the biggest politi-
cal challenge to the ruling Com-
munist Party in t hree decades, t he
state media have had a different
story to tell. T hey have h eralded Xi
as the “ people’s l eader” c ommand-
ing a “people’s war” against the
virus, and have relentlessly tried
to turn medical workers into he-
roes — and sometimes martyrs —
on the front lines.
State media Tuesday reported
that the last of t he 14 “cabin h ospi-
tals” — quarantine c enters built in
stadiums to isolate the infected —
had closed because they were no
longer needed.
“In the past week, the propa-
ganda h as really been ramping up,
highlighting the dwindling new
infections and contrasting that
with the r ising infection r ate over-
seas,” said Yun Jiang, a former
Australian government official
who now co-edits the China Nei-
can blog. “They’re trying to tell a
positive story about China’s and
the Communist Party’s manage-
ment of t he situation.”
But through the course of the
epidemic until Tuesday, X i had not
visited Hubei, instead s ending t he
premier, Li Keqiang, in the early
days and Vice Premier Sun Chun-
lan more recently. On a walk
through Wuhan apartment com-
plexes last week, residents went
onto their balconies to shout
“Fake, it’s all fake!” toward Sun,
according to videos posted on
Twitter.
“He is trying to repair the dam-
age,” said Pei of Claremont Mc -
Kenna College. “Before he sent Li
Keqiang rather than go himself,
and i n retrospect that seems like aXi takes v ictory lap
in visit to Wuhan
as case numbers fall
Trend suggests China’s
efforts to contain virus
have been effectiveto move freely and spread the
virus.
Describing a ll of Italy as a “pro-
tected zone,” Conte on Monday
night ordered a decree to essen-
tially keep Italians in place, with
any travel — abroad or across
regions — requiring a signed dec-
laration and checks from police.
Some leaders in the north, the
epicenter of the outbreak, sug-
gested Tuesday that Italy should
go even further in tightening the
restrictions, stopping all nones-
sential business and transporta-
tion.
Italy’s s trategy against the virus
has moved quickly only because
the disease has grown exponen-
tially. Sixteen days ago, it had
some 100 total cases. Te n days ago
it had 1,000. On Tuesday, it had
more than 8,500 active cases; an-other 1,000 people had recovered,
and 631 had died. The country,
with the world’s second-highest
proportion of seniors, is particu-
larly vulnerable to a disease that
has proved deadliest for older
people. Most w ho have died o f the
coronavirus were in their 70s or
older.
If Italy’s m easures work to slow
the spread, other countries with
escalating outbreaks, including
Germany and France, could at-
tempt to use similar t actics. But in
the meantime, other European
countries have tried to limit the
movement of Italians across the
continent’s often-celebrated open
borders.
Austria on Tuesday announced
a ban on all Italians seeking to
enter the country without a spe-
cial medical certificate. Later inthe day, Slovenian authorities an-
nounced they were following the
Austrian example. The island na-
tion of Malta, to the south, has
suspended all flights and passen-
ger ships between itself and Italy
— effectively blocking its Mediter-
ranean neighbor. And Spain’s cab-
inet banned direct flights be-
tween Italy and Spanish a irports.
Switzerland, which shares a
border with Italy but is not a
member of the European Union,
tightened its border to Italian
tourists. But on Tuesday Italian
workers w ere still allowed to cross
into Switzerland as long as they
could provide documentation of
their employment, according to
the Swiss government.
Several other European coun-
tries, including Britain and Croa-
tia, are asking anyone arrivingfrom Italy to self-isolate for
14 d ays. Britain also issued a travel
advisory on Monday discouraging
all but essential travel to Italy. And
British Airways announced the
temporary cancellation of flights
to and from Italy. France’s border
with Italy, meanwhile, remained
open on Tuesday. Air France an-
nounced a reduced service that
would still allow passengers to
access each Italian destination in
the airline’s n etwork.
Italy’s lockdown is nowhere
near as absolute as the one insti-
tuted in January in China, whose
authoritarian communist govern-
ment has used smartphone apps
to track citizens and in some in-
stances limited people to their
apartment c omplexes.
In Rome, people were able to
move around the city freely. Butguglielmo mangiapane/reuters
A dog passes an empty restaurant in Rome on Tuesday, the first day of a nationwide lockdown that is limiting the movement of millions.