Country's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Monday directed people to stay home and seek permission for essential travel. 

In a TV address, he said the measures were taken by the government to protect the most vulnerable.

Civil Protection Chief and Coronavirus Emergency Commissioner Angelo Borrelli told ANSA news agency that 463 people have died in Italy after contracting the virus, up 97 on Sunday. 

He told the news agency 7,985 are ill with the coronavirus in Italy, up 1,598 on Sunday. 

Apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic, the economic uncertainty it has sparked will likely cost the global economy $1 trillion in 2020, the UN’s trade and development agency, UNCTAD, said on Monday.

“We envisage a slowdown in the global economy to under two per cent for this year, and that will probably cost in the order of $1 trillion, compared with what people were forecasting back in September,” said Richard Kozul-Wright, Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at UNCTAD.

Launching the UNCTAD report as world financial markets tumbled over concerns about supply-chain interruptions from China, and oil price uncertainty among major producers, Kozul-Wright warned that few countries were likely to be left unscathed by the outbreak’s financial ramifications.

Photo caption and credit:

UN News/Jing Zhang
An infrared thermometer is used to check the temperature of guests at a hotel entrance in Yangon, Myanmar.