At the time of writing, Italy has 107 confirmed deaths from coronavirus, marking it as the most severely affected city in Europe.

Italy is also where South Africa’s first confirmed case of the coronavirus travelled to, before returning to KZN.

Most of the more than 3 000 cases in Italy are in the north, but others have been confirmed in 19 of Italy’s 20 regions.

The virus tore through the country at an alarming rate, moving from a few confirmed cases to hundred in a matter of weeks.

Per SFGATE, Milan’s Piazza del Duomo is typically packed with hundreds of tourists.

Now, it looks like this:

Typically busy streets and restaurants have emptied as people lock themselves away to avoid contracting the virus.

Only 60 miles west of Milan, the Lombardy region has been hit especially hard. Ten towns are on army-guarded lock-downs.

The region has the most cases with 305 patients — four of them children. The town of Veneto saw a spike of 28 cases overnight, bringing its total to 71.

…“Viruses don’t know borders and they don’t stop at them,” Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza insisted at the start of a crisis meeting with World Health Organization and European Union representatives in Rome.

In Venice, a city that was, until recently, being crushed by the influx of tourists, things are also looking eerily quiet:

The Colosseum in Rome is empty:

Florence Cathedral:

Codogno in northern Italy has become a ghost town:

Italy has appealed to the rest of Europe for help containing the virus.

If you’d like to keep tabs on it, use the Johns Hopkins map. 

[source:sfgate]