In Switzerland, which like Austria borders Italy, there was a call for calm following a surge in coronavirus infections in Italy.
“The news from Italy is worrisome ... but it is too early to think that a wave is rolling our way,” Daniel Koch, the head of the department for contagious diseases at the heath office, told the SRF public broadcaster
The German health ministry said it had initiated a phone conference for all European Union public health authorities about the outbreak in northern Italy on today.
French Health Minister Olivier Veran said that authorities were getting ready for a possible outbreak in France of the new virus. In an interview published Sunday in French newspaper Le Parisien he said he was monitoring closely the “very serious” situation, including in neighboring Italy.
Earlier this month, France reported the first death outside Asia of a person infected with the virus, an 80-year-old Chinese tourist.
Among those in quarantine in Italy were 274 migrants, rescued in the Mediterranean Sea by a charity ship from boats launched by Libya-based traffickers and allowed to disembark in Pozzallo, Sicily.-AP
