Coronavirus scare shuts down Australian Institute of Sport’s Italy base

Outpost of Australian Institute of Sport in northern Italy ordered closed by authorities as three people die of coronavirus.

The Australian Institute of Sport's European training centre in northern Italy. Picture: AIS

An outpost of the Australian Institute of Sport has been ordered closed by Italian authorities as three people in northern Italy died of coronavirus.

The entire region of Lombardy in northern Italy around the area of Milan, and in Veneto around Venice, have been rocked by a sharp spike of coronavirus cases, prompting authorities to take extreme measures to try to contain its spread by locking down public areas and gatherings for at least a week.

The European hub of the AIS, in the Varese region, is 120km away from the first cluster of Italian victims in Codogno but authorities have ruled the cancellation and closure of schools and universities as well as recreational, cultural, religious events across all of Lombardy and Veneto.

Originally, authorities ordered the closure of 11 towns south of Milan around where a 38-year-old Italian man, believed to have been a coronavirus “super spreader”, had visited. Authorities believed he caught the virus from a friend who had returned from Shanghai, but that person tested clear of the virus, leaving officials with no idea of where the “ground zero” of the particular case might be.

The lockdown was expanded across the region on Sunday after the numbers of people testing positive to the virus skyrocketed to over 150. The new measures forced the cancellation of the Venice carnival that had been due to continue until Tuesday, Giorgio Armani’s fashion show, and three Italian league football games on Sunday.

The AIS campus is used by Australian teams and international athletes, particularly rowers and track and field athletes, but at this time of the year in the northern hemisphere winter, it is usually very quiet.

Luca Zaia, the head of the Veneto region, said the current closures and bans would be in place until at least March 1.