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March 7, 2020 "Health checks at border crossings both on the road and on the rail and stop at the air connections to and from Milan and Bologna". It is when he announced the Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in the evening.

From Monday at the land borders with Italy, in particular in the Brenner and Tarvisio, controls on people on board the vehicles entering Austria will begin. "The police will randomly choose which means to stop, also based on the license plate - added Kurz - we have already made contact with the airlines and the Vienna airport to suspend the air connections to and from Milan and Bologna. The goal is slowing down and slowing down the spread. We also do this by trying to reduce unnecessary travel across borders as much as possible ".

Just yesterday, Slovakia reported the first case of new coronavirus infection, a man whose son returned from Venice two weeks ago but showed no symptoms. The Slovak authorities have thus decided to stop all flights to and from Italy from Monday indefinitely. In the Czech Republic anyone returning from Italy, from today 7 March will have to remain in quarantine for 14 days. Penalty of a fine of 3 million crowns, equal to 120 thousand euros. In this weekend 16.500 people are expected to return who had gone to Italy in a skiing holiday.

Coronavirus also spreads in the far north, with at least 37 cases found in Iceland. The local media reported that specifying that all the infected had been in Trentino or in the Austrian ski resort of Ischgl. Of the people who tested positive for Covid-19 none are in serious condition.

Even the Maldives, a tourist paradise par excellence for many compatriots, have decided to close the borders to the Italians from midnight today. According to what has been learned, the case of a Bergamo citizen found positive was the definitive conviction of the local authorities. Thailand has also imposed a mandatory 14-day quarantine on people arriving from China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macao, Iran and Italy, under penalty of a fine of around 650 euros.

More than twenty countries have decided to block or limit entry to Italians as a measure against the spread of coronavirus. But there is no doubt: "In Europe they are absolutely against - explains Walter Ricciardi, adviser to Minister Speranza and member of the WHO executive council - this morning it was established that the unilateral, bilateral closure of borders and travel is absolutely free of Unfortunately, there are non-European countries, such as Israel, Turkey and the United States that are a mix: they make a series of additional checks that are unreasonable "and the Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio urges the EU for a" univocal reaction " . Speaking with journalists in Zagreb, the owner of the Farnesina said: "At European level we cannot have a country that closes to Italians who come from one region, another that checks on all Italians who come from all regions" .