Italian group back from Wuhan, put under observation

(ANSA) - Rome, February 3 - A flight carrying 56 Italians evacuated from the coronavirus-stricken Chinese city of Wuhan landed at the Pratica di Mare military base near Rome on Monday.
    One of the Italian citizens who was supposed to board the flight, a 17-year-old exchange student, remained in China because he had a fever, diplomatic sources said Monday.
    International health protocols do not allow people showing symptoms that could be linked to the virus on board flights to safeguard the health of the other passengers, the sources explained, adding that the Italian national is being closely watched by medical personnel, the embassy and Chinese foreign ministry.
    "He has done the test (for the coronavirus) and we should have the results tomorrow," Stefano Verrecchia, the head of the foreign ministry's crisis unit, told ANSA.
    "The situation is pretty calm for him.
    "He's being looked after by two Italian ladies in an apartment belonging to the embassy, which is constantly in contact with him". The Italian group was taken on two buses to the Cecchignola military complex in Rome where they will be under observation for two weeks, as in other countries that have flown in their citizens from the virus-hit area.
    The virus has an incubation period of up to two weeks.
    "At the moment they are all well," said Verrecchia.
    "There aren't any problems.
    "They have been under a lot of pressure (over the last few weeks) but they don't seem fatigued.
    "They are just tired from the journey".
    Lorenzo Di Berardino, a 22-year-old student from Pescara who was among the group to be repatriated, said the health scare had not put him off China.
    "I'll return to China soon," he said, according to his parents.
    "I liked it. It was just a little misadventure (for me)".
    Doctors at Rome's Lazzaro Spallanzani Hospital have managed to isolate the DNA of the deadly new Chinese coronavirus. Health Minister Roberto Speranza said the findings would be made available to the international medical community to boost efforts to find therapies for disease.
    The Spallanzani is specialised in infectious diseases and is currently treating a couple of Chinese tourists who have the virus.
    A foreign national who was admitted to the Spallanzan's intensive-care department of on Sunday has tested negative for the coronavirus, the Lazio regional health department said Monday. Sources said that the patient was an elderly Irish man.
    A young Chinese woman was allegedly pushed off a stationary coach on its way from Cuneo to Turin amid coronavirus panic recently, Turin's Chinese community told Mayor Chiara Appendino Monday.
    The woman, who has not been named, was allegedly told she was not welcome on the vehicle because she was Chinese, according to what she reportedly told the community.
    The woman, who does not have a good command of Italian, did not file a complaint with police.
    Appendino was told about the incident during a lunch with the Chinese community at a Chinese restaurant in the northwestern Italian city.
    There has been a handful of similar incidents of anti-Chinese discrimination in Italy since the coronavirus news broke last month.
    The governors of the northern regions of Veneto, Lombardy, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trentino Alto Adige have written a joint letter to the health ministry in which they request pupils who return to Italy after a period in China to be subject to a period of isolation.
    This would also apply to children attending Italian schools.
    "There is no desire for political confrontation or to put people into ghettos," said Veneto Governor Luca Zaia of the rightwing League party.
    "We just want to respond to the anxiety of many parents, given that the (government's) circular letter does not feature these sorts of measures". China said Monday it urgently needed medical equipment and surgical masks as the death toll from the new coronavirus jumped above 360, making it more deadly than the SARS crisis nearly two decades ago. The 57 new deaths confirmed Monday was the single-biggest daily increase since the virus was detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan, where it is believed to have jumped from animals at a market into humans. The virus has since spread to more than 24 countries despite many governments imposing unprecedented travel bans on arrivals coming from China.
    The World Health Organization has declared the crisis a global health emergency, and the first foreign death from the virus was confirmed in the Philippines on Sunday.
    All but one of the 57 new deaths reported Monday were in Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province, most of which has been under lockdown for almost two weeks. The national death toll reached 361 -- exceeding the 349 mainland fatalities from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03.
    The number of infections also jumped significantly, passing 17,200. SARS, caused by a pathogen similar to the new coronavirus and also originated in China, killed 774 people -- with most other deaths in Hong Kong.