‘We can’t go on like this’: Panic across Lombardy as Italy decides to put 16m people in lockdown over coronavirus

Travel severely restricted in northern Italy as part of widest lockdown against the coronavirus outside of China, Federica Marsi reports from Milan

Police officers and soldiers check passengers leaving from Milan’s main train station (AP)

A sweeping lockdown left Milan’s bustling Central Station near deserted on Monday as Italian officials grappled to enforce new measures to slow the rapid-fire spread of the coronavirus.

The leaked details of a decree to quarantine more than 16 million people – the largest clampdown against the coronavirus outbreak in the western world – sent thousands into panic over the weekend as they tried to flee the worst affected region of Italy.

On Monday morning, a handful of orderly travellers lined up at a gate manned by military personnel before accessing the platforms. One by one, they showed their travel documents and made a case for their departure with a police officer.

“I’m originally from Milan but I live in Lecco, I’m trying to go home,” Lia Giudici, 67, told The Independent. “I did not expect we would reach this point.”

Travel out of and within the whole of Lombardy, including the financial capital of Milan, and 14 provinces across the north were severely restricted on Sunday until 3 April, as the total number of infections jumped to 9,172 and the deaths rose from 366 to 463.

The industrial region and economic heartland is the worst hit, with a toll of more than 4,000 confirmed infections.

Girolamo Fabiano, head of the railway police in Lombardy, said: “The decree is very clear: there are only three exceptions to the rule: first, if your work requires it. Second, if you have medical needs. Third, if you have to go home. There are no other reasons.”

Randomly selected passengers were asked to fill in a self-certification.

Fabiano said the authorities could verify the claims and those who left without a valid reason could face fines and up to three months in jail for breaking the quarantine rules.

The decree, which did not include details on its implementation, sparked a wave of disorderly departures when leaked to the press on Saturday night, hours before it was officially signed.

As confusion swept the country, planes were still flying from the region’s airports on Monday and roads were still open, amid appeals by politicians calling on citizens to collaborate.

Michele Emiliano, the president of Puglia, called on its residents to remain in the northern regions. “Get off at the first train station, don’t take planes to Bari and Brindisi, go back by car, get off the bus at the next stop,” he wrote on Facebook. “You are carrying the virus into the lungs of your brothers and sisters, your grandparents, uncles, cousins and parents.”

Alitalia, the Italian airline, on Sunday said it would suspend all national and international flights from Milan’s Malpensa airport and operate only a reduced service for domestic flights from the city’s Linate airport.

If we don’t die of coronavirus, we might die of hunger

Antonio Carullo, restaurant manager

Rosa Achille, 56, was worried she wouldn’t make it back to Bari, at the heel of Italy’s boot, after visiting her 27-year-old daughter who was sick for reasons unrelated to coronavirus.

“They changed my flight a couple of times already. I’m going to the airport hoping to board my flight today,” she said as she hopped on to a bus to Milan’s Linate airport.

While her daughter remained in Lombardy, she was obliged to return to Bari to resume her job as an accountant. “I worry that if she falls sick, I won’t be able to help her,” she said. According to the decree, only residents of Lombardy are allowed to enter the region.

Passengers wear protective face masks inside the nearly deserted Linate airport in Milan (EPA)

As Milan and the rest of Lombardy became part of an expanded “red zone” over the weekend, business owners in the city centre braced for even harder times.

Da Regina Restaurant, which runs four different branches around Milan’s Duomo, was eerily silent at lunchtime on Monday. Tables looking on to the famed cathedral were empty, a scene its manager Antonio Carullo said he has never seen.

“On a good day, we used to have up to 600-700 clients,” he said. “Last week, on a good day we had 50-60. [Sunday] we had 10-20 and today it looks like it will be the same.”

The restrictions imposed by the decree on travel within the Lombardy region has been tough for the restaurant sector in the city centre, which relies heavily on tourism and the surrounding offices.

Carullo said he was already forced to let some of his staff go. “If we don’t die of coronavirus, we might die of hunger,” he said.

A tiny tobacco shop along the fashionable Via Dante reminded shoppers to enter two at a time and keep a distance of one metre from each other.

But its owner Giancarlo Di Guardi said he rarely has to remind shoppers as “the city is deserted”.

Politicians and medics have called on the population to remain home to curb the spread of the virus. Guardi estimates his revenue have taken a 70 per cent hit over the past two weeks and might take an even deeper dive in the coming days and weeks. “At lunchtime there used to be a queue outside, now there’s no one,” he said.

On top of a monthly rent of €4,000, he worries he won’t be able to pay taxes in June, which are calculated every six months based on the revenues of the year before.

“We can’t go on like this,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “I tell myself next week will be better. But so far, each week has been worse than the one before.”