ELISA ODDONE
Photojournalist
“I didn’t see any panic on the street. But everyone has been taken aback by the aggressiveness of the virus and by how quickly the number of the infected patients has grown. ”
Fears mount in Europe as Italy confirms 11 coronavirus deaths, with parts of country's north under Wuhan-style lockdown.
Michele L did not know what to do when he heard that the coronavirus had hit Codogno in northern Italy, less than 10km from his hometown Casalpusterlengo. An Italian man in his late 30s, identified as Patient 1, had been declared critically ill in Codogno. It was Friday, and Michele was about an hour's drive away, in Milan.
Should he stay in Milan or visit his hometown? "I wondered whether to head back on Friday evening," he told Al Jazeera. "But 10 days earlier, my brother had spent a few days holidaying in the mountains with a direct colleague of Patient 1.
I had flu symptoms and decided it would have been wiser to stay in a containment area, away from other people." Codogno is now known as the "Wuhan of Italy" and is in lockdown. Trains do not stop there and the streets are empty.
