Italy struggled to convince citizens of coronavirus crisis

AKIPRESS.COM - Ordinarily, having an aperitivo in Venice's St Mark's Square would cost a small fortune. Not on 3 March, when bar owners offered a free drink for each one purchased in an attempt to attract custom as the city emptied out amid Italy's developing coronavirus outbreak. The offer was intended to last a month.
In Rome, restaurant touts jokingly invited people to try a "carbonaravirus" as the tourists left in the capital went along with the relaxed vibe, choosing to carry on with their holiday rather than go home. That was during the first week of March. Business owners could hardly be blamed for worrying about the impact of coronavirus on their livelihoods, especially when leaders were giving confusing messages.
On 27 February, four days after 11 towns in the north were quarantined and when 17 people had died of the virus and 650 were infected, Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the governing Democratic party, travelled to Milan, whose wider Lombardy region is the centre of the outbreak, for an aperitif with a group of students. "We must not change our habits," he wrote in a post on social media. "Our economy is stronger than fear: let's go out for an aperitivo, a coffee or to eat a pizza."
On the same day, Beppe Sala, the mayor of Milan, shared a video with the slogan "Milan does not stop." The clip contained images of people hugging each other, eating in restaurants, walking in parks and waiting at train stations. Nine days after his trip to the city, by which time the death toll had risen to 233 and confirmed cases 5,883, Zingaretti announced he was suffering from the virus.