Coronavirus in Italy: Venice waters running clear due to lack of tourists amid COVID-19 pandemic

It’s one of the worst hit regions for the deadly coronavirus, but residents in Venice are praising a small upside that many have never seen before.

The city of Venice is enjoying crystal clear waters in its world-famous canals due to a lack of debris from tourists and near-zero boat traffic under Italy’s ongoing coronavirus lockdown.

The clear waters are a tiny bright spot in the beleaguered but beautiful city, whose economy has been virtually wiped out since tourists fled the area beginning last month, spooked by the spread of coronavirus in the country’s north.

Since March 9, the city like the rest of Italy has been a so-called “red zone,” with hotels, restaurants, cafes and most businesses shuttered, and residents ordered to stay inside and avoid travel.

MORE: Follow the latest coronavirus news

MORE: Australia shuts borders to nonresidents

That has had a drastic effect on Venice’s normally polluted waters, where speedboats churn up mud, and discarded plastic and other garbage from tourists float in its canals.

An ambulance speedboat sails through Venice where waters are clear due to a lack of tourists. Picture: ANDREA PATTARO / AFP

Italy has been one of the worst hit areas outside of China. Picture: ANDREA PATTARO / AFP

Images of the welcome change were first posted on a Facebook group “Venezia Pulita (Clean Venice),” with residents sharing photos of tiny fish swimming in usually opaque waters, or cormorant, egrets and other birds enjoying the lack of boat traffic in the city’s canals.

“Stay at home — and nature thanks you,” commented one Italian woman, Monica La Rosa, on the site.

MORE: Where coronavirus has spread

On Wednesday, only an occasional police or ambulance speedboat was seen in the nearly empty city, as lines of docked gondolas protected by blue covers bobbed under sunny skies.

The flight of tourists — over 5 million of whom visited Venice in 2018 — has shut down commerce within the city already reeling from disastrous flooding in November.

Venice’s Rialto Bridge is usually packed with tourists. Picture: ANDREA PATTARO / AFP

Seaweed is seen through clear water. Picture: ANDREA PATTARO / AFP

The “acqua alta,” or high waters, submerged major low-lying areas of the city, including St Mark’s Square, in up to 1.87 metres (6 feet) of water, the highest level since 1966.

Venice is located in the Veneto region, which has the third highest cases of infections from coronavirus, at 3,214, and the fourth most cases of deaths, at 94.

In Lombardy, Veneto’s neighbour to the west that has been the hardest hit by the virus, 17,713 people have been infected and 1,959 people have died.