London | The Italian government has moved swiftly into its total coronavirus lockdown, setting up checkpoints and ordering tourists to leave, while scrambling for ways to ease the pain of the extraordinary 3½-week quarantine.

The government late on Tuesday (AEDT) announced that borrowers' mortgage repayments would be suspended, and the European Union wheeled out a €25 billion ($43 billion) investment fund to prop up the Continent's virus-whacked economies.