The Wall Street Journal - 28.03.2020 - 29.03.2020

A12| Saturday/Sunday, March 28 - 29, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

“It is unfortunately not yet

possible to do that via holo-

gram,” said Olaf Scholz, the

vice chancellor.

Austria plans for Chancellor

Sebastian Kurz’s entire inner

circle to quarantine together if

someone close to him tests

positive.

Despite being sick, Mr.

Johnson spoke to Mr. Trump

by phone Friday. The presi-

dent wished Mr. Johnson a

quick recovery, Downing

Street said.

Mr. Johnson noticed he had

mild symptoms, including a

cough and a fever, on Thurs-

day afternoon and was tested

shortly after. He then stood

outside his official residence

at 10 Downing Street to par-

ticipate in countrywide ap-

plause of the National Health

Service, standing a few feet

away from the country’s chan-

cellor of the exchequer. Mr.

Johnson was informed at mid-

night he had the virus.

Under U.K. health guidance,

a person who is infected must

self-isolate for a week to allow

the virus to subside. Any peo-

ple living in the same house-

hold as that person must iso-

late for two weeks, as it can

take days for signs of infection

to show.

The British government has

Medical personnel prepared to evaluate a patient who arrived in an ambulance at a hospital in Brescia, Italy, this past week.

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Italy’s Slow Progress Is Warning to West

One of the most

draconian lockdowns

hasn’t stamped out

the virus entirely

Patients were treated in an emergency temporary overflow hospital building set up to ease the pressure on the health-care system in Brescia, Italy, onMonday.

FRANCESCA VOLPI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2)

Doctors in Brescia, a north-
ern Italian town at the center of
the country’s new coronavirus
pandemic, have seen glimmers
of hope in their battle against
the disease in recent days.
The virus has killed more
than 1,000 people there and the
number of infected admitted to
its large hospital is beginning
to decline, down by half to 50 a
day, suggesting the extreme
lockdown imposed on the pop-
ulation could be working.
But local officials believe
the true number of those in-
fected with the virus is per-
haps six times the official fig-
ure of 7,305. And they are
taking new steps: Those dis-
charged from hospital but still
positive for the virus are sent
to temporary quarantine facili-
ties for two weeks before re-
turning home, a measure grad-
ually being introduced
elsewhere in the country.
More than two weeks after
Italy enacted a nationwide
quarantine that remains the
most drastic in the West—peo-
ple are largely barred from
leaving their homes—the
growth of new infections is
slowing to single-digit percent-
age increases each day, lower
on average than a week ago.
However, progress is un-
even and slow, with an addi-
tional 919 people dying on Fri-
day, the highest one-day total
since the outbreak began. That
brought the total in Italy to
9,134 dead of the disease, the
most in the world.
More than 86,000 people in
Italy have tested positive for
the virus so far. But the head
of Italy’s emergency services
said up to 650,000 Italians
may have been infected, many
of them asymptomatic, mean-
ing that even tighter quaran-
tine measures could fail to
stop the spread.
The country’s experience—
which has served as the tem-
plate for the lockdowns
throughout much of the West
and which followed several
weeks of more-limited quaran-
tines in the country’s north—
shows that such measures are
very slow to produce results
and ultimately could fail to
stamp out the virus entirely.
That is instructive for other
countries that must decide
how hard to clamp down on
their populations, and how to
calculate the attendant eco-
nomic damage. At the mo-
ment, the U.S. has a patchwork
of policies, while most of Eu-
rope is under some form of a
lockdown.
“The restrictions had a big
impact. It’s the only thing that
allowed us to survive,” said
Alessandro Triboldi, head of
Brescia Poliambulanza Hospi-
tal. “But we need to get into
our heads that we’re in this
for the long haul.”

“In China, it took two

months of complete closure to

go down to zero contagions.

What’sbeendoneheresofar

has helped save [the northern

region of] Lombardy but it’s

not over yet,” he said.

China’s Zhejiang province

reported one new domestic in-

fection on Thursday.

Italy enacted its first lock-

down measures on Feb. 22,

quarantining 11 towns at the

center of the initial clusters of

infections in the northern re-

gions of Lombardy and the Ve-

neto. But much of the country

continued normally. Some 40%

of those leaving their homes

before the virus’s arrival were

still doing so regularly before

a recent tightening of the

rules, according to mobile-

phone location data cited by

officials.

On March 10, the govern-

ment extended restrictions to

the whole country. Residents

can leave their homes only to

buy food or medicine or seek

medical care. Violators face

fines of up to €3,000 ($3,900)

or jail time.

Italy’s lockdown still isn’t

as strict as China’s and the

country hasn’t adopted the ag-

gressive tactics that helped

stop the virus in Wuhan,

where the pandemic is

thought to have originated.

There, mild or suspected

cases—including healthy rela-

tives of those infected—were

placed in makeshift quarantine

centers in hotels and schools.

Doctors treating coronavirus

patients were separated from

their families. By contrast, in

Italy, those with mild symp-

toms have so far been told to

self-isolate at home, and are

rarely tested for the virus.

Chinese authorities pro-

vided Wuhan with doctors,

food and other supplies to get

through the quarantine, a sce-

nario impossible to replicate

in Italy, because the virus has

spread nationwide.

Italy’s experience shows that

Western-style lockdowns that

don’t involve the coercive mea-

sures of Wuhan may have to be

maintained for longer than

Western societies are willing to

tolerate to see results.

“The issue is whether you

can sustain a lockdown for the

time it takes to work—three,

four, five, six months or lon-

ger—while the economy goes

south,” said Gabor Kelen, di-

rector of the Department of

Emergency Medicine at Johns

Hopkins Medicine.

Frustration with the lock-

down has drawn attention to a

push by authorities in the Ve-

neto, the region east of Lom-

bardy, to launch a mass-testing

campaign as a way of control-

ling outbreaks and eventually

loosening quarantines.

Indeed, the experience of

the small town of Vo’ Euganeo

has shown that extensive test-

ing coupled with a lockdown

can help tame the virus more

quickly than just containment.

Vo’ had Italy’s first death at-

tributed to the coronavirus.

Lucia Menaldo, owner of an

eyeglasses store in Vo’, was in-

credulous when she learned on

Feb. 22 that authorities were

placing the entire town of

3,400 people under a hard

quarantine with no one al-

lowed in or out.

“Initially people were mad.

Jair Bolsonaro. More than 20

members of the delegation

later tested positive. Mr. Bol-

sonaro, who has been playing

down the dangers of the epi-

demic, has since said that his

test came back negative.

Most leaders have asked

citizens to stop shaking hands

and quarantine as soon as

they experience symptoms,

but not all have led by exam-

ple. Mark Rutte, the Dutch

premier, held a press confer-

ence on March 10 to announce

that everyone must stop shak-

ing hands and instead use

greetings such as bumping el-

bows—yet during the address

he shook hands with an aide.

In late February, as the vi-

rus took hold in the U.K., Mr.

Johnson paid a visit to a hos-

pital, saying later he had

shaken hands with patients.

On March 11, he met with

Queen Elizabeth II.

Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish

prime minister, refused to go

into quarantine after his wife

tested positive on March 15.

After a doctor who had

given her a pneumonia vaccine

tested positive, Ms. Merkel re-

treated to her modest apart-

ment overlooking Berlin’s Mu-

seum Island, which she shares

with her husband.

She chaired a cabinet meet-

ing on Monday by telephone.

In the cabinet room, her min-

isters sat at a large round ta-

ble, preserving a distance of

about 6 feet between them,

according to a spokesman.

a hierarchy of ministers to re-

place Mr. Johnson if he can’t

perform his duties, of which

Foreign Secretary Dominic

Raab would be next in line, a

government spokesman said.

French lawmakers have

been among those hit hardest

by the epidemic. Some 30 law-

makers and staffers at the Na-

tional Assembly have tested

positive for the virus. As a re-

sult, France’s political parties

agreed to designate 20 mem-

bers who lived close to the

grand riverside palace to rep-

resent them and vote on be-

half of the 557 not present.

The house also postponed all

nonessential bills.

The Spanish parliament al-

lowed remote voting in 2011,

but speeches can be made only

“personally and aloud” in the

House. So this past week, Mr.

Sánchez addressed a near-

empty chamber to request a

15-day extension of the state

of emergency, with 307 of 350

deputies voting online.

Last week, the Swiss federal

assembly, founded in 1500,

moved to allow its 200 legisla-

tors to convene by video or

telephone. And on March 20,

the European Parliament, the

European Union’s legislative

body, changed its own rules to

allow members to vote on bills

and motions by email, attach-

ing a photo of their ballot.

—Laurence Norman

in Brussels and Xavier

Fontdegloria in Barcelona

contributed to this article.

demonstrates the difficulties
of leadership, which demands
personal meetings with senior
aides and displays of public
reassurance, while conforming
to public guidelines to limit
contact with others. Many
leaders have failed to follow
their own government advice.
Government offices and leg-
islatures around the world are
often housed in archaic build-
ings that push policy makers
into proximity. The British
government is run from a war-
ren of interconnected old
buildings around Downing
Street in central London that
serve as residences for the
prime minister and others,
and as offices for other minis-
ters and senior civil servants.
Several other leaders, in-
cluding President Trump,
Chancellor Angela Merkel of
Germany and Canadian Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau, who
were in close contact with
people with the infection, have
so far tested negative.
Mr. Trump was tested after
he hosted a dinner at his Flor-
ida resort for a delegation
around Brazilian President

Continued from page A

Johnson

Tests

Positive

U.K. Prime Minister Johnson said on Instagram that he is self-isolating after testing positive for the virus.

How could you not be when you

see military and police road-

blocks keeping you from leaving

town?” she said. “Now we know

that those roadblocks saved us.”

As Vo’ fell under quaran-

tine, Andrea Crisanti, a micro-

biology professor and infec-

tious-diseases expert at the

nearby University of Padua,

saw an opportunity. He had

developed a test for the coro-

navirus by mid-January using

information made public by

Chinese doctors.

Dr. Crisanti oversaw the

testing of 95% of the residents

of Vo’ in the days after the

first infection was reported.

He found that 3% of the popu-

lation had been infected and

that just under half of those

who tested positive were as-

ymptomatic.

When everybody was tested

two weeks later, the rate of in-

fection had fallen to 0.1% with

only eight new infections, all

of whom lived with previously

infected people. “The main les-

son from Vo’ is that when you

have a cluster of infected peo-

ple, you should do a very ag-

gressive lockdown and then

test as many people as possi-

ble,” Dr. Crisanti said.

Nationwidelockdown

New cases

Deaths

Hoping for the Peak

Italyiswaitingtoseeif

coronavirusinfectionsand

deathswillstarttodecline.

New confirmed coronavirus

cases and deaths

Source: Italian government

Note: Through March 27

6,

0

2,

4,

March 1 10 20

BYERICSYLVERS
ANDMARGHERITASTANCATI