The Veneto region in northeast Italy will adopt stricter health-safety measures following a new surge in coronavirus infections, regional president Luca Zaia said on Friday.
The new measures will be unveiled on Monday, according to Zaia, who said the spike in cases was due to careless and “irresponsible” behaviour by a man who tested positive for the virus after a business trip to Serbia.
The man returned to Italy on 25 June and felt the symptoms on the same day, but continued to mingle with others, even going to a party and a funeral, Zaia said. He then went to the emergency services on 28 June, tested positive for Covid-19, but insisted on going back home. He was finally hospitalised on 1 July and is now in intensive care.
Four other people with whom he was in contact also tested positive, while 89 have been quarantined in the cities of Vicenza and Verona.
According to the regional president, Veneto has thus gone from “low risk to a high risk,” with its R rate jumping from 0.43 to 1.63.
“If we continue to walk around without masks, stuck to one another, spewing conspiracy theories about the virus being an invention by pharmaceutical companies, Martians or astronauts, such things will occur inevitably,” Zaia said.
The Brussels Times
