This is a Warning from the Future

Italy woke up on Sunday morning to find out the whole country was in the future, already. During the night, the government published the most drastic actions yet taken by a western democracy to try and stop the spread of the new coronavirus. All Western countries are observing closely, worried soon they have to follow Italy's measures.

The government in Rome set strict travel restrictions on the whole Lombardy area enclosing Milan, the country's business, fashion, and media capital and on 14 additional provinces across the prosperous north, including Venice and regions of the Emilia Romagna territory.

All public gatherings and events have been stopped.

In this section of 16 million people, the coronavirus's European epicentre, where the number of infected cases rose rapidly, all public gatherings and events have been stopped. No weddings, funerals, concerts, sports games, bingo halls, cinemas and theatres, and no Mass until 3 of April. While trains and planes are still operating and running on time, the government is restricting people from moving unless necessary.

Bars and restaurants can only open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. if they can assure one meter of space between customers.

For the rest of the Nation, the government confirmed the closure of all schools and universities, theatres and cinemas, sports halls, libraries, museums and cultural and religious place. Also, anyone with a fever higher than 37.5 degrees Celsius and anyone who's tested positive for the virus must isolate till all-clear is given by health professionals.

On Sunday, Pope Francis, who has been fighting a cold, broadcasted his weekly Angelus message from a library in the Vatican, instead of the window facing Saint Peter's Square. "I'll use a strong expression," Francis said. "This pope is caged in the library."

The reality is this is new for everyone

These are drastic measures and have caused notable uncertainty and increasing panic across the country. These are also quite vague, and it remains unclear how they will even be followed. They came to light on Saturday evening in an environment of chaos, after a draught of the bill detailing the legislation was leaked to the press. The plan proposed a complete shutdown of northern Italy, so thousands of people rushed to get the last train going south. Finally, at 2 a.m. local time, PM Giuseppe Conte gave a press conference explaining that Lombardy and other provinces would not close their borders. Still, people would be "compelled" to follow "reduced mobility" and could only leave for emergencies.

What does that actually mean? Who is going to enforce these measures? And are they even going to work?

Italy has long been, for better or for worse, a political laboratory and a harbinger of developments which later spread. It's also a rule-bound nation where laws are often ignored, a place that often falls short on long-term planning but that rises to the challenge in crises and has a talent for improvisation that its northern neighbours lack. It is a free society where information is often inaccurate and politicised. This is an experiment where free movement of people and products meets free movement of a deadly new virus. Every country across Europe and the world is watching Italy deal with an epidemic that respects no boundaries, has put immense strain on public-health institutions and is driving the already fragile economy of the country to the brink. Lombardy alone accounts for more than 20 per cent of national gross domestic product, and tourism is one of the most important industries in Italy.

Coronavirus exposed the flaws in the bloc

The European debt crisis exposed the flaws in a bloc sharing a currency but not fiscal policy. The 2015 migration crisis revealed that individual European countries want to secure their borders and control the number of incoming refugees, in a region built on the concept of visa-free travel and burden-sharing. For the EU, which has free movement of people but no universal health guidelines across countries, the coronavirus may pose an even greater test. Will the EU member states cooperate with Italy, or will they cordon it off? Should richer northern European countries host medical equipment or join poorer southern and eastern European resources to delay outbreaks? Are the Italians overreacting, or is the rest of the EU countries under-reacting?

Every European country has its way of handling things. Italy has a fragile coalition government and strong regions, and its response has been rapid, if chaotic. Germany, which has 939 cases and no deaths reported so far, has a highly federal structure in which regions have a great deal of flexibility in coping with crises of this kind. As of this weekend, Germany was still hosting soccer matches with tens of thousands of fans, to the dismay of some German doctors who fear the country is not taking the threat seriously. However, the Minister of Health has urged event organisers with more than 1,000 attendees to cancel them. He has said that he is more worried about the virus-derived fear than the virus itself.

France has a stable centralised government, and its policy has been dispassionate to date. President Emmanuel Macron has cancelled all public events with more than 5,000 participants. However, that has not been entirely respected: on Sunday, people gathered in France for the International Women's Day march.

Even the region's leaders have differed in their actions, at least for now. Macron and his wife went to the theatre on Friday and even urged others to do so.

Coronavirus forced changes

That's changed in Italy. Last month, when the government tried to present a "business as usual" strategy, Nicola Zingaretti, the chief of the centre-left Democratic Party and president of the Lazio region around Rome, travelled to Milan for an aperitif and met with the people, supporting the message "# MilanDoesn'tStop."

Saturday, Zingaretti said he had tested positive and stayed at home to be monitored. (The President of the Piedmont region, and the head of the Italian army, also tested positive.)

Milan has now stopped.

Should the rest of Europe follow the path of Italy and enforce strict restrictions?

UK politicians are discussing whether to go through lengthy recess to discourage parliamentarians from speeding up the spread. The European Parliament has moved a scheduled session in Strasburg over coronavirus concerns. Last week, a French government spokeswoman, Sibeth Ndiye, said it was only a matter of time before France shifted to emergency "level 3," where all public events would be cancelled. (In Italy, the COVID-19 crisis took the wind out of the League Party's sails, whose populist slogan ' Italians First ' and condemnation of illegal immigration is less convincing now that Italians have become foreign outcasts. The Czech Prime Minister said that Italy should ban all people from travelling abroad.)

There was confusion about the new measures, in Italy on Sunday morning.

Would people be stopped if they took their car to leave Lombardy? What papers would they be required to get to leave the lockdown zone, and who would give those documents? The Italian media on Sunday had many questions and little clarity.

Even high-ranking leaders don't know precisely how the new rules will work. Can I go to lunch? Can I go to work? are among the questions Italians are asking to the governor of the Veneto region, Luca Zaia, which is part of the concerned zone, said in a news interview on Sunday. "These are some of the weaknesses in the decree." There are political pressures: Zaia and the governors of the Lombardy and Piedmont regions are from the League, which is the leading opposition party and has been brutally critical of the government's approach to the crisis.

Healthcare system risking the collapse.

In his press conference, Conte said the heath-care system risked becoming "overwhelmed" and that Italians should not leave their house unless necessary and think about their "grandparents" wellbeing, given that older people are at higher risk of death if infected. The problem isn't just the number of those who've tested positive or the death rate; but it's the number of available beds in intensive-care units. The head of Lombardy's intensive-care crisis unit, Antonio Pesenti, said that his region's health-care system, the best in the country, was "on the brink of collapse" and that they were forced to set up extra intensive care units in hallways.

Italy has already had thousands of coronavirus cases and the deaths are now in hundreds, more than any other European country. Pesenti said that in three weeks, about 18,000 people would need to be hospitalised in Lombardy, and about 3,000 could necessitate intensive care. That is ten times the region's actual capacity. "If the population doesn't understand that it needs to stay home, the situation will become catastrophic," he declared.

His words are a warning for public-health leaders around the world.

Italy has universal public health care, caring even for the unemployed, and those employed are usually entitled to sick pay. But there's no doubt that the virus is putting more pressure on the system than it can handle. What is the situation elsewhere in Europe? Are French hospitals ready? German ones?

In Paris, a friend told me, life goes on as usual. Here in London, where I live, it's business as usual. There hasn't been a run for toilet paper. At least not yet.

A friend who is in Milan was shocked on Sunday when I told her theatres and cinemas were still open in London. Today the third person in the UK to catch Covid-19 died as 273 more people tested positive in the most significant daily increase yet.

My friend in Italy was already adapting to the new normality. This weekend's measures in Italy may not be the exception. Soon, they might become the rule.