A 78-year old Italian who had tested positive for the coronavirus has died, Italy’s health minister said Friday.
The man had been in hospital in the northern region of Veneto for around 10 days for an unrelated illness, minister Roberto Speranza said.
Italian officials ordered schools, public buildings, restaurants and coffee shops closed in a tiny town in northern Italy Friday after six people tested positive for the new virus, including some who had not been to China or the source of the global health emergency.
The new cases represented the first infections in Italy acquired through secondary contagion and tripled the country’s total to nine. The first to fall ill met with someone in early February who had returned from China on Jan. 21 without presenting any symptoms of the new virus, health authorities said.
