Train stations are closed in the Italian region of Lombardy, as it goes into lockdown over coronavirus fears, Saturday, February 22.
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READ MORE: Italian officials ordered schools, public buildings, restaurants and coffee shops closed in a tiny town in northern Italy Friday after six people tested positive for the new virus, including some who had not been to China, the source of the global health emergency.
The new cases represented the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion and tripled the country’s total to nine. The first to fall ill met with someone in early February who had returned from China on Jan. 21 without presenting any symptoms of the new virus, health authorities said.
Authorities think that person passed the virus onto a 38-year-old Italian, who went to a hospital in the town of Codogno with flulike symptoms on Feb. 18 but was sent home. He returned to the hospital after his condition worsened and is now in intensive care, Lombardy region public welfare director Giulio Gallera said.