A second patient infected with the new coronavirus has died in Italy, ANSA news agency reported citing healthcare sources, as an outbreak spreads in the country’s industrious north with 30 cases reported so far.

The victim was a female resident in Milan’s Lombardy region, ANSA said. Her reported death comes hours after a 78-year-old man died overnight near Padua, in the nearby Veneto region.

Lombardy, Italy’s financial and industrial heart, is the most stricken region with 27 cases.

Public gatherings including Sunday masses and football matches were suspended, and schools and shops were closed down in an area south-west of Milan with around 50,000 residents, who were told by authorities to remain indoors.

Meanwhile, the condition of the first infected patient in Lombardy, a 38-year-old man from the town of Lodi who fell ill after meeting a friend who recently visited China, has stabilised.

source reuters.com