Italy’s foreign minister has said misinformation is damaging the country as he tries to calm a growing coronavirus panic while announcing a crackdown on the “jackals” selling face masks online for more than €1,000.
Luigi Di Maio said the outbreak had become an “infodemic” and was damaging Italy’s “scientific community, image and economy”.
Ten towns in the Lombardy region and one in Veneto have been under lockdown since Sunday as Italy strives to contain a virus that has so far killed 14 people in the country. Italy’s civil protection authority said on Thursday that out of the 528 confirmed cases, 37 people had recovered from the illness, including two Chinese tourists who had been undergoing treatment in Rome since late January.
“Without wanting to minimise the situation, just over 10 towns out of 7,904 are involved,” Di Maio said. “And all of the cases we are finding outside of this radius are attributable to the outbreaks in the Lombardy and Veneto regions.”
Several other countries, including the UK, US, Ireland and Israel, have warned their citizens against all but essential travel to the affected areas in Italy and told people returning from the outbreak zones to self-quarantine.
As thousands of tourists cancelled trips, other countries including Mauritius and Israel banned travellers from visiting Italy. Israel announced the move after one of its citizens tested positive for the virus after returning from the country.
A cruise ship operated by an Italian firm, MSC, carrying more than 4,000 people was turned away from two ports in the Caribbean on Wednesday owing to coronavirus fears. Meanwhile, universities in the US have begun cancelling study programmes in Italy.
Venice, usually overflowing with tourists, has been badly hit, while Milan, Italy’s capital of finance and fashion, is at a standstill.
Scammers have been exploiting fears by selling face masks, hand sanitisers and supplements claimed to cure coronavirus at extortionate prices online. Police in Turin said 20 people were under investigation after they discovered eBay listings for a face mask for €1,200 and a pack of five for €5,000. Hand sanitisers, which would ordinarily cost around €3, are being sold for more than €50.
“The jackals who speculate on masks and disinfectant will be severely punished,” Di Maio said.
Dr Stella Kyriakides, the EU commissioner for health and food safety, urged people to seek out reliable sources of information on the virus and to avoid those trying to use the outbreak to further their own agendas.
“This is a situation of concern but we must not give in to panic,” she said. “We must also be vigilant when it comes to misinformation and disinformation as well as xenophobic statements, which are misleading citizens and putting into question the works of public authorities.”
Italy has faced criticism over its handling of the outbreak, with prosecutors investigating hospitals in Lombardy after it emerged that doctors may have delayed testing a so-called super-spreader.
Di Maio said the country should not be blamed for carrying out more than 10,000 coronavirus tests since Friday, but from now on only people showing symptoms would be examined. One explanation for the surge in cases is that tests were carried out on many people who showed few or no symptoms and who might have recovered without even knowing they had coronavirus.
“There is certainly much more attention from our country than other countries such as France and Germany where, despite strong clinical suspicion, they are not carrying out many tests,” said Tullio Prestileo, a doctor in infectious diseases at Palermo’s Benfratteli hospital. “Let’s not forget that we were the first country in Europe to isolate the virus. This obviously gave us a big advantage and allowed us to activate a series of studies and checks more than in other countries.”
Of the 528 people infected in Italy, 128 are in hospital – 36 of them in intensive care – and the rest are recovering at home.