Coronavirus Has Europe Treating Chinese People Like the Plague
ROME—The sign taped to the glass door of a popular gelateria in front of Rome’s iconic Trevi Fountain is perfectly clear, and perfectly ugly. Written in both Chinese and English, it states what pretty much everyone in a country of hypochondriacs and the rest of Europe is thinking: “Due to international safety measures, all people coming from China are not allowed to have access to this place.” The writer then apologizes for any inconvenience.
Italy has confirmed just two coronavirus cases despite quarantining 7,000 people on a cruise ship this week over a feverish woman from Hong Kong who had, as it turned out, nothing but the flu. A full 24 hours after the woman was cleared, citizens of the port town of Civitavecchia near Rome staged a protest at the port, demanding that all 750 Chinese passengers on board be tested for the disease before anyone could get off the ship.
The two cases that actually are confirmed in Italy are a Chinese couple who traveled from Wuhan to Milan and then across the peninsula on a bus tour with more than 100 other Chinese tourists over the last five days, sparking a panic across the entire country as authorities alert everyone at every stop of their tour—highway rest areas included. The hotel where they were staying, just a block from the Colosseum, was cordoned off with armed police on Friday, prompting passersby to ask each other if there was a terrorist threat.