The northern Italian city of Bergamo struggles with a huge toll — some of it hidden — as the epicenter of Italy's coronavirus epidemic. Families here are deprived of a farewell with virus-stricken loved ones, or even a traditional funeral.
FILE - In this Tuesday, March 17, 2020. filer, relatives walk behind a hearse carrying a coffin inside the Monumentale cemetery, in Bergamo, the heart of the hardest-hit province in Italy’s hardest-hit region of Lombardy, Italy. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms. For some it can cause more severe illness, especially in older adults and people with existing health problems.
“In theory, we should not have gone. But it was one of her last relatives who remains,” Steffanoni said. Instead, strict containment measures were extended to Bergamo only on March 8, two weeks later, without ever isolating two valley towns where the outbreak was first recorded. No official explanation has been given for the decision not to extend red-zone status to Bergamo. Regional welfare official Giulio Gallera acknowledged the question but said he didn’t want to place blame, adding “we are in a situation in which the entire region has substantially adopted particularly rigid measures.”
Though the increase in positive diagnoses has narrowed from some 500 a day this past weekend to over 300 on Thursday, Lorini said it would take until at least next week to determine if the containment measures were having an impact.
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