Bloomberg reports:

In Rome, the first signs of change came from overhead. Shortly before cocktail hour on Monday, the thrum-thrum-thrum of a helicopter could be heard above the winding lanes of the 2,000-year-old historic center. The police were keeping an eye on the Trastevere neighborhood, where smoke billowed from the windows of a jail as inmates rioted, protesting cramped conditions that put them at risk of coronavirus infection.

About the same time, the stock market was opening in New York, ushering in a week that would become the worst rout in more than three decades. A few hours later, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte gathered journalists for a televised, prime-time press conference. Rules that only 48 hours earlier had been imposed on Milan, Venice and other cities in the north—travel was restricted, schools were shut, and even the opera was called off—would be extended nationwide. The world’s eighth biggest economy, with more than 60 million inhabitants, entered virtual quarantine.

It was like flicking a switch. In just days, a Western democracy went from Aperol Spritz to lockdown, as the outbreak spread from a northern crisis to a national one, now with more than 15,000 known infections and more than 1,000 deaths, second only to China.

For those lucky enough not to be living through the Italian lockdown, pay attention: What’s happening in Milan, Florence and Rome offers a likely preview of what’s coming to New York, London or Paris in a week or two. Consider this our letter to you from Italy, written from the seclusion of our couches and dining room tables, with a taste of what you should expect.

Whether it’s shuttered shops, civil unrest, or the coronavirus itself, it will be difficult to avoid the trauma Italy has experienced in the past three weeks. President Donald Trump blamed the outbreak on a “foreign” virus Wednesday when he announced restrictions on European travel to the U.S. But it’s already there, in Seattle, New Rochelle and places yet undetected. [Continue reading…]