A DOZEN northern Italian towns were subject to stringent measures yesterday after Covid-19 claimed two lives and sickened an increasing number of people who had no direct links to the origin of the virus.

The secondary contagions prompted local authorities in towns in Lombardy and Veneto to order schools, businesses and restaurants closed, and to cancel sporting events and religious gatherings. The mayor of Milan, the capital of the Lombardy region, also shut down public offices.

Hundreds of people who came into contact with the more than 25 people confirmed infected in Italy were in isolation pending test results, and civil protection crews set up a tent camp outside a closed hospital in Veneto, the region which has Venice as its capital, to screen medical staff for the virus.

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The first patient of the northern regions to fall into a critical condition was in the hard-hit Codogno, about 37 miles (60km) south-east of Milan. The town, with a population of around 16,000, is in lockdown, with supermarkets, restaurants, and businesses closed.

The National: The centre of Codogno is normally bustling on a Saturday afternoonThe centre of Codogno is normally bustling on a Saturday afternoon

Seven cases were reported in the Veneto region, including that of a 78-year-old man who died late Friday, said the regional president, Luca Zaia. Some of those infected were related to the man who died.

The Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, sent condolences to his family and to the family of an unidentified second victim.

Zaia said yesterday that the contagion showed the virus is transmitted like any other flu, and that trying to pinpoint a single source of infection, or one with direct links to China, is no longer effective.

“You can get it from anyone,” he told reporters. “We can expect to have cases of patients who had no contact [with suspected carriers].”

“While the virus isn’t particularly lethal, it can be for the elderly or people with existing conditions,” he said.

An initial ordinance penned by the health minister imposed an effective cordon on 10 Lombardy towns around the province of Lodi, southeast of Milan, after Lombardy reported a quadrupling of cases on Friday. Individual cities outside that core cordon area, such as Cremona, issued their own restrictions, cancelling school after confirming their own cases.

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Authorities urged calm, but acknowledged that the clusters were alarming given the secondary contagions. The first man to be confirmed as infected in Lombardy had met with someone who had returned from China on January 21, but remains without symptoms.

The infected man worked at a Unilever plant near Codogno, and more than 100 of his colleagues are being kept in isolation pending test results.

In Rome, doctors at the Spallanzani infectious disease hospital reported some good news in the otherwise bleak day. An Italian who tested positive for the virus two weeks ago is to be released, and a sickened Chinese tourist has tested negative for the first time. Those in Spallanzani were Italy’s only cases until the clusters emerged in the north on Friday.

Separately, 19 Italians who spent more than two weeks quarantined on a virus-stricken cruise liner in Japan landed at Rome’s military Pratica di Mare airport yesterday. They had been stranded on the Diamond Princess since February 5.