Switzerland shuts 9 border crossings in wake of Italy’s lockdown
Border
Bellinzona (Switzerland), March 11, 2020 (dpa/NAN) Nine small border crossings, between Switzerland and Italy, were shut down to better control traffic between the two virus-affected countries, the Swiss Federal Customs Administration says.
Traffic will be channelled through larger crossings where officers are conducting spot checks in line with Italy’s lockdown directive that not only discourages all non-urgent domestic travel but also cross-border traffic, the Swiss authority says.
The closed crossings are located in Switzerland’s Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which has recorded more than a sixth of around 600 coronavirus infections that have been confirmed in the country so far.
Ticino has decided against shuttering its border altogether, not least because there are around 4,000 doctors and nurses among the nearly 70,000 people who commute from Italy to the canton each day.
Similarly, shops and restaurants closed, hundreds of flights were cancelled and streets emptied across Italy on Tuesday, the first day of an unprecedented, nationwide lockdown imposed to slow Europe’s worst outbreak of coronavirus.
Just hours after the dramatic new restrictions came into force, health authorities announced the death toll had jumped by 168 to 631, the largest rise in absolute numbers since the contagion came to light on Feb. 21.
The total number of confirmed cases rose at a much slower rate than recently seen, hitting 10,149 against a previous 9,172.
But officials warned that the region at the epicentre, Lombardy, had provided incomplete data.
The government has told all Italians to stay at home and avoid non-essential travel until April 3.
This radically widens steps already taken in much of the wealthy north, which is the epicentre of the spreading contagion.
“Our civic duty is the only thing that can save us,’’ said Marzio Tonilo, 35, a teacher from the northern town of San Fiorano, which was placed under quarantine last month.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte unexpectedly expanded the so-called red zone to the entire country on Monday night, introducing the most severe controls on a Western nation since World War Two.
The move shocked many small businesses, which feared for their future.
“It looks like an apocalypse has struck, there is no one around,’’ said Mario Monfreda, who runs Larys restaurant in a smart Rome residential area.
Under the government order, all bars and restaurants will now have to close at 6.00 p.m.
“It is a total disaster. This will reduce us to nothing … More people are going to die as a result of the economic crisis that this lockdown is going to cause than the virus itself.’’
However, the prosperous northern region of Lombardy, centred on Italy’s financial capital Milan, called on the government to introduce even more stringent measures.
“I would shut down all the shops.
“I will certainly close down public transport and I will seek out all businesses that could be shut without creating excessive damage to the economy,’’ said Lombardy Governor, Attilio Fontana.
While Lombardy accounts for 74 per cent of all the fatalities, the disease has now touched all of the country and the government is worried that if it worsens, the health system in the less developed south will collapse, causing deaths to spike.
For at least the next three weeks, anyone traveling in Italy will have to carry a document declaring their reasons.
Outdoor events, including sports fixtures, have been suspended and schools and universities are all shuttered.
A former Treasury Chief Economist predicted that the lockdown measures were reducing Italy’s economic output by between 10 per cent and 15 per cent, with the tourism and transport sectors down by about 90 per cent on their normal levels.
Looking to mitigate the impact on ordinary Italians, the government is considering making banks offer customers a pause in their mortgage repayments.
It also called for the EU to relax its rules to allow more state spending.
“We will ask for the rules to be changed, it is a necessary condition, otherwise people will die,’’ Industry Minister, Stefano Patuanelli, said.
The coronavirus first emerged in China in 2019 and the country’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday its top diplomat, Wang Yi, had called his Italian counterpart, Luigi Di Maio, to offer his condolences for the situation in Italy.
He said he would increase efforts to send Italy more masks, medical equipment and also offered to send a medical team. (dpa/NAN)
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Edited by Fatima Sule/Abdulfatah Babatunde