should the market not cotton to monetary antidotes to the nCoV, then the authorities would be forced to double down and triple up, to try harder, faster
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Italy Bond Yields Soar as Virus Lockdown Hits Financial Capital
John Follain
Italian government bond yields jumped on Monday after Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government imposed a sweeping lockdown in the country’s industrial and financial engine room to contain the coronavirus.
The benchmark 10-year bond yield rose 25 basis points to 1.33 and the two-year yield soared by 45 basis points to 0.49%. The finance ministry said Monday that a temporary hit to the economy driven by the lockdown is necessary to halt the virus.
Read More: Italy Stocks at Edge of Bear Market With Economic Angst Building
The stock market in Milan, a city in the lockdown zone, is set to open as normal on Monday despite some calls to halt trading. There has also been discussion of banning short selling to prevent speculators from targeting Italy.
As Conte’s restrictions on travel to and from the affected area came into force on Sunday, the number of deaths from the virus jumped by more than 50% to 366 and Italy became the most seriously affected country after China, with more than 7,000 confirmed cases. The prime minister has been tested himself and the result is negative, he told La Repubblica in an interview.
The outbreak is a body blow for an economy that was already on the brink of recession and is straining the authority of Conte, a political rookie with an unstable coalition, as he tries to impose his will on a region with some 17 million people.
The government decided on Thursday to double emergency spending to 7.5 billion euros ($8.5 billion) to help cushion the economic impact of the virus. That figure will rise even further, La Repubblica reported citing and interview with Conte.
On Sunday, officials across the country attacked his handling of the crisis while in Milan many people appeared to be flouting the new rules.
Read More: Mapping the Coronavirus as it Spreads Around the World
Conte has banned anyone from leaving or entering the worst-hit regions without a “demonstrable” business or health reason and threatened to shutter bars unless they ensure patrons keep at least 1 meter apart.
Yet on Sunday, the Milanese were still sipping espressos shoulder to shoulder at counters across the city and people were boarding trains to escape the city heading north and south. Airports remained open.
With fears mounting of an exodus spreading the disease across the rest of the country, regional leaders in the south of Italy ordered quarantine for anyone fleeing the lockdown.
“Get off the train at the next station, don’t take planes for Bari or Brindisi, turn your cars back, leave the bus at the next stop,” Governor Michele Emiliano of the southern Puglia region wrote in a Facebook post, mandating 14 days of isolation for anyone arriving from the most-affected provinces.
A raft of regions followed suit including the Naples area and Sicily. At the railway station in Salerno south of Naples, police and ambulances awaited arrivals off the Milan train, ready to enforce the quarantine rules.
Regional governors and local mayors said it was unacceptable that they only discovered Conte’s measures through media leaks and the prime minister looked to be struggling to keep a grip.
Questions for ConteHis officials initially promised a press conference for Sunday evening. Then they announced the health minister would be answering questions. In the end it was civil protection chiefs who gave a briefing on the spread of the virus. Italians haven’t seen their prime minister since a briefing in the early hours of Sunday.
“We absolutely need one thing: CLARITY, CLARITY, CLARITY,” opposition leader Matteo Salvini wrote in a Facebook post. Salvini listed a host of questions he needed Conte to answer: who can do what? where can we go? who can work? who can travel?
A traveler pulls luggage through Milan’s Central Station on March 8.
Photographer: Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images
He also called for short-selling to be suspended on the Milan stock exchange to prevent speculators targeting Italy.
“The stock exchange has a business continuity plan that allows us to trade even in case of a nuclear attack,” Borse Italian CEO Raffaele Jerusalmi said in an interview, criticizing “unjustified panic.”
In the Vatican, where one case has been diagnosed, Pope Francis celebrated his weekly general audience not from the window of the Apostolic Palace, but from the library via streaming to avert the risk of crowds in St. Peter’s Square spreading the virus.
“This Angelus prayer today is a bit strange, with the Pope caged in the library, but I can see you, I am close to you,” Francis said, before appearing briefly at the window to bless the faithful.
— With assistance by Flavia Rotondi, Alessandro Speciale, and Marco Bertacche
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