The coronavirus outbreak continued to spread with new cases reported at an almost hourly rate on Tuesday. After Italy, which reported more than 10,000 cases, had expanded its lockdown to the entire country, its neighbours Slovenia and Austria announced unprecedented border closures on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, almost all countries in the region introduced travel restrictions and banned public events, and new cases were reported in Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia.
Slovenia shuts down its border with Italy
Slovenia confirmed on Tuesday nine new cases, making it 34 in total since the outbreak began. More than 1,600 suspected cases have been tested by now in Slovenia, and authorities are still waiting for results from 280 samples. The total includes at least seven health workers who had been in contact with infected patients.
On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Marjan Sarec said he ordered closure of Slovenia’s border with Italy, after Austria did the same earlier in the day. The ban will affect overland passenger traffic. At the same time, all incoming passengers at Ljubljana Airport are screened for symptoms of potential infection and all public events with 100 people have been banned.
The Ljubljana government had earlier decided to send detailed instructions about the disease to each and every household in the country by mail, and announced plans to stockpile some half a million face masks. Slovenia has a population of slightly more than 2 million.
Croatia confirms two new cases, cancels public events
In Croatia, all public gatherings expecting more than a thousand people have been banned, and a mandatory 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving into the country from global outbreak hotspots has been introduced.
These now officially include the whole of Italy, the whole of Iran, China’s Huabei province, Germany’s Heinsberg county, and South Korea’s city of Daegu and Cheongdo province. The mandatory quarantine was introduced on Monday, and the list of blacklisted territories is updated daily.
Two more cases have been confirmed in Croatia by Tuesday night, making it 15 since the outbreak started. All of them were reported in the cities of Pula, Rijeka, Varazdin, and Zagreb, and all were found in people who had been to Italy or their close contacts.
Most concerts, festivals, and conferences scheduled for March have been hit with cancellations on Tuesday, bringing public life to a standstill, and the country’s flag carrier Croatia Airlines said it would suspend its service to Rome until March 28.
The national banking association HUB said local banks are preparing measures to help companies affected by the crisis, which would include moratoriums on repayment of loans. Italy is one of Croatia’s major trading partners and accounts for some 15 percent of the its total exports and Croatia’s economy might be severely affected by Italy’s lockdown.
Serbia reports new case as Bosnia closes schools
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, two more cases have been reported late on Tuesday, bringing its total to seven so far. All but one have been detected in the ethnic Serb-dominated Republika Srpska half of the country. On Tuesday, local authorities moved to close all primary and middle schools in Republika Srpska until the end of month. All outdoor events have been banned as well.
Flights from Sarajevo Airport to Athens and Rome have been cancelled, and federal government introduced an entry ban on all foreign nationals travelling from countries affected by the outbreak, including Italy, Iran, South Korea, and several Chinese provinces. In the capital Sarajevo, all large gatherings with 250 people or more have been banned.
In Serbia, a fifth case was confirmed on Tuesday afternoon. Authorities there also introduced a ban on travellers from Italy, some parts of China, South Korea, Iran, and parts of Switzerland.
Even Montenegro, which is the last European country with no confirmed cases, introduced precautionary bans for travellers going both to and from affected countries. Health Minister, Kenan Hrapovic, said on Tuesday that the blacklisted countries include Italy, Spain, Iran, and China.
Global death toll passes 4,200
Around 117,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed globally as of Tuesday, the majority of them in China, where the outbreak is believed to have started in December. More than 4,200 deaths have been confirmed so far.
The worst hit European country is Italy, where 631 deaths had been been reported by Tuesday, the largest death toll outside of China, followed by Iran with 291 deaths, South Korea with 54, Spain with 35, and France with 30.
Italy introduced travel checks, school closures and bans on public events across the entire country on Tuesday, putting its population of 60 million under restrictions. On Tuesday alone, 168 deaths were reported, in the deadliest single day of the outbreak in that country.
In the United States, New York state reported 173 cases, dramatically up from 31 on Monday. The total includes 36 cases in New York City. The state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, announced that a containment area would be set up in the city of New Rochelle, spanning a one mile radius.
This is an ongoing story, and will be updated as more information becomes available.
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