Italy jumped from three reported cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus last week to four deaths at least 190 people testing positive in the northern part of the country by Monday. In response, Italy quarantined a dozen towns and sent masked police officers to guard checkpoints, canceled soccer matches and closed schools, scrapped the final day of Milan Fashion Week, and called off Venice's Carnivale, its famed annual pre-Lenten masked bacchanalia. At the same time, Italian authorities pleaded for calm, noting that the virus has a lower mortality rate than the flu and that all four people who died were elderly.
Italy instituted strict travel bans and airport screenings on Jan. 31, and authorities still haven't located the source of the sudden outbreak. Austria has temporarily suspended cross-border travel with Italy and other European countries are considering similar actions.
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