You know China.

It's an authoritarian regime with, they tell you, stay home, you're on lock down.

People do it.

It's a little tougher in Italy, though.

What's it like on the ground?

It's a lot different in Italy, but welcome to the Piazza del Popolo, the people's square, but not today.

Now the prime minister has quoted Winston Churchill in saying, This is Italy's darkest hour.

If anybody wants an idea of what the future may hold, a worst case scenario don't look any further than Italy.

It was the news, and nation already on its knees, was dreading.

But as the crisis deepened, it felt inevitable. 00:00:56.420 --> 00:01:9.930 The announcement triggered a rash of panic buying here in Rome, at shoppers in masks swarmed supermarkets in fear of a countrywide locked down in a moment in a national address, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conti spelled it out. 00:01:9.980 --> 00:01:13.360 In the starkest terms, we have run out of time, he said.

We're having a growth and infections and deaths.

The whole of Italy will become a protected zone in essence, a quarantine of the entire country of 60 million people until next month.

Here's what life under lock down means travel across Italy severely restricted all public gatherings of any kind.

Strictly forbidden employees should work from home or prove to police why they're not.

Restaurants and shops will shut their doors after dusk the extension of the shutdown of schools and universities across the country.

Violators risk up to three months in jail or fines of $225.

The extreme measures after the number of cases jumped once again.

Now the most infections outside of China. 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:2.010 More than 9000 cases, 463 people have died. 00:02:2.150 --> 00:02:6.610 Officials in the hardest hit northern region say hospitals are on the verge of collapse. 00:02:6.620 --> 00:02:14.820 This'll morning, we spoke with an 88 year old with pre existing conditions.

Giorgio Penna, who's been stuck inside his house since the original shutdown.

Are you scared this?

Scared?

Scared of dying.

Everybody's scared about die, Okay, so this is pretty drastic.

It's there's gonna be a lot of fallout.

We talked about the business or financial implications.

Do authorities believe that this is worth it?

That it's going to work?

Well, I think the authorities, especially the prime Minister, they may be looking at numbers that were not even aware of, but yes.

I mean, the projections are there.

This is reason they've enacted these What might, Well, what might be considered, which are extreme measures. 00:02:58.150 --> 00:03:3.880 Certainly every Italian that we've been speaking to says, Yeah, they weren't expecting this, Although they were dreading it. 00:03:4.180 --> 00:03:12.500 The the situation in the north quarantining 16 million people seemed extreme in itself now quarantining the entire country.

I could tell you personally, I gotta go back to the UK for for a couple of reasons.

British Airways have cancelled their flights here, so I'm gonna have difficulty getting out.

That would be the same case for all kinds of foreigners.

They're being restricted from going from one place to another.

You know work has been canceled.

School has been cancelled.

Imagine this scaled up to the United States.

There are 60 million people here.

You know this is a Westernized countries country.

It's a democracy is in China, and they're dealing with this.

And this is these absolutely are extreme measures and their decisions that would not have been taken lightly. 00:03:49.730 --> 00:04:1.440 Milan especially, You know, the financial capital of the north shutting down that area, the industrial region of the north, shutting down Venice, now shutting down the rest of the country. 00:04:1.620 --> 00:04:2.960 Yeah, course it's extreme. 00:04:3.080 --> 00:04:3.710 And why? 00:04:3.870 --> 00:04:6.350 Because they're dealing with numbers that they can't control. 00:04:6.460 --> 00:04:8.750 They're just trying to cut down the spread of this. 00:04:9.340 --> 00:04:13.750 And you know, you do something like this and you're bound to upset people.

Sometimes it's difficult to, you know, have a sense of where the problems we're gonna bubble up.

But we're learning now about an Italian prison that basically erupted over Corona virus restrictions, protests outside of a prison in Rome.

Is there a fear that this nationwide locked down could lead to unrest?

Or, I don't know, maybe even worse.

Maybe violence.

Well, certainly in some regions, when it comes to the prison's, especially there are a couple of reasons that they're concerned about that.

First of all, they've closed down visitation rights.

Okay, so whenever you have a new institution where you've got a lot of people gathered together.

Which is why they closed down places like schools shut down.

University's shut down Any gatherings, they banned weddings and funerals.

How extreme is that? 00:04:59.410 --> 00:05:3.650 So course they don't want any introduction of the virus to a place like a prison. 00:05:3.880 --> 00:05:6.550 And that is why you've seen the unrest in the prisons. 00:05:6.860 --> 00:05:11.340 In addition to that, there are concerns within institutions like prisons.

Where the same.

Well, wait a minute.

How are we going to be protected from this so over general terms, general society, you know, they're they're they're not gonna be revolting.

And not for long.

They're not angry about this, I think Italians very sanguine about the situation.

I think they're looking at what's going on here.

And the priority is let's stop the spread of this by any means necessary.

A lot of people are asking why has it really been so hit hard?

Eso has born the brunt of this outside of China.

And what can we do to stop this?

So you know, we're only day one into this nationwide restriction, this nationwide quarantine, generally speaking by whatever means necessary, they're willing to undergo these restrictions in order to stop the spread of this virus. 00:05:58.960 --> 00:06:1.550 Not just here, you know, but around the world. 00:06:2.600 --> 00:06:4.160 All right, Charlie, thank you so much.