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Europe Toils to Contain Virus as Confirmed Cases Inch Upward

Europe Toils to Contain Virus as Confirmed Cases Inch Upward

(Bloomberg) -- In less than two weeks, the coronavirus has spread in Europe from a handful of cases in northern Italy to thousands across the continent, with pockets of infection from Spain to Belarus.

Cases in Germany rose by more than a fifth to 240 on Wednesday to cover virtually the entire nation, while neighboring Poland registered its first case and France and Switzerland have banned large gatherings. In Italy -- Europe’s epicenter of the disease where more than 2,500 people have contracted the virus and 79 have died -- authorities have quarantined entire towns and local media reported that schools will be shut down until mid-March.

“The next days and weeks will be challenging for us,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn told lawmakers in Berlin, adding that it’s still taking too long to test some suspected cases. “In the current situation, it will be all the more important that we show common sense. That we stick together and that we are ready to trust each other at a time of stress.”

Europe originally had more modest clusters of the virus, including at a German auto parts supplier and in a French ski resort, where authorities quickly identified an original carrier and kept the illness in check. But the outbreak in Italy, traced to a 38-year-old man who sought treatment at a hospital near Milan on Feb. 18, triggered a series of new infections spread by people traveling to and from the region that’s popular with tourists.

Europe Toils to Contain Virus as Confirmed Cases Inch Upward

More than 3,000 have contracted the virus in Europe, with numbers rising steadily across the continent and warnings about the impact on already fragile economies becoming ever louder. Complicating the battle to contain the outbreak, there are increasing doubts that supplies of medical equipment will hold up. Germany on Wednesday banned exports of protective items including masks, gloves and suits unless for special cases like international aid efforts.

“What we saw in China is now happening in Europe,” said Massimo Andreoni, professor of infectious diseases at Rome’s Tor Vergata University. “Italy has the most cases also because it carried out many more tests than other European countries.”

European authorities have canceled some of the continent’s biggest business events, including Berlin’s ITB tourism trade fair and the Geneva Motor Show, and tightened border controls in an effort to limit the spread. Globally, more than than 93,000 people have been infected. The window to contain the outbreak is narrowing, the World Health Organization has warned.

The virus is punishing the region’s companies with delivery delays, plunging export orders and slowing job growth, threatening to delay a long-awaited manufacturing revival and even derail service-sector resilience.

German manufacturing association Gesamtmetall called on Angela Merkel’s government to help companies weather the impact of the outbreak by reimbursing some employee costs if factories are temporarily halted.

With the country’s industrial sector already in the midst of a recession, the group -- whose members employ 2.3 million people -- warned about the risk of “heavy damage” to the German economy as coronavirus risks sapping demand and disrupting supplies.

“There are clear downside risks and a likely weakening of the economy in March,” Chris Williamson, an economist at IHS Markit, said Wednesday. “Growing numbers of companies are reporting lost business due to the virus spread, notably in sectors such as hotels, travel, transport and tourism but also even in areas such as financial services.”

ECB Travel

German financial regulator BaFin said it’s in close contact with banks on possible responses and emergency plans. The European Central Bank, which is considering how its long-term loan program can help support the economy, said it will restrict all non-essential travel until at least April 20.

In Sweden, the government is set to expand a support program for businesses to protect the largest Nordic economy from the virus fallout, according to local media. The number of confirmed cases has doubled to 30, most of whom had been traveling in Italy during the winter school break.

Spanish authorities reported the earliest death from coronavirus outside of Asia -- a man who had traveled to Nepal and died on Feb. 13. Separately, Spain confirmed three children have been infected, one in Madrid and two in Castile-La Mancha province.

Italian authorities are holding their breath, hoping contagion figures in the next couple of days will show a downward trend, two weeks after the first confirmed infection.

Almost 26,000 people have been tested, and experts say that the recent surge in Italian cases is due to people infected in the past 10 days as the backlog accumulated. What worries health authorities is the increase in intensive-care patients. They rose to 229 Tuesday from 140 on Sunday. The number of recovered rose to 160.

The big concern in Lombardy, the most affected region, is to contain the spread in the “red zones” and spare big cities like Milan and Bergamo.

“There will be disruption to daily life in the affected regions,” said Germany’s Spahn. “It can and will cause stress.”

--With assistance from Carolynn Look, Marco Bertacche, Zoe Schneeweiss, Alessandro Speciale and Todd White.

To contact the reporters on this story: Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.net;John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Schaefer at dschaefer36@bloomberg.net, Iain Rogers, Chris Reiter

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.