The big shutdown

Definite le nuove misure nazionali di contenimento dell’emergenza. Nell’articolo 1 della bozza del nuovo decreto del governo compare il divieto di ingresso e di uscita dalla Lombardia e da altre 11 province, e l’estensione delle zone controllate a Piemonte ed Emilia-Romagna. Nel dettaglio, le province diventate “zona rossa” sono le seguenti: Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Rimini, Pesaro e Urbino, Venezia, Padova, Treviso, Asti e Alessandria. Tutte le nuove disposizioni sono valide da oggi marzo fino al 3 aprile.

No travel into or out of Lombardia and a number of other provinces until April third, which is a quarantine of 16 million people. Good thing we’ve got the wine cellar well-stocked through September, at the very least! Seems like a bit of an overreaction to me, but we’ll see. In the meantime, I anticipate most Italians will consider this to be a grand holiday of sorts.

And no, I’m not particularly concerned despite the drastic measures being taken. The country with the largest known test sample, South Korea, is seeing a mortality rate of 0.6 percent, which is only four times more lethal than the average flu. And while the 4 percent death rate based on the official numbers in Italy looks bad, the fact is that most people who have been infected don’t know they have it and have not been counted as an official case.

I strongly suspect something that we simply don’t understand is taking place, and that we’ll eventually be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. In the meantime, get plenty of sleep, drink plenty of fluids, and take vitamins C and D.

Besides, it’s still not a pandemic, right?

UPDATE: While the government has announced the quarantine of Lombardia as well as parts of the Veneto, Emilia Romagna, and Piemonte, they aren’t shutting down the roads or the airports yet. They haven’t even closed the borders with France or Switzerland at this point.