Demographic science aids in understanding the spread and fatality rates of COVID-19

Jennifer Beam Dowd; Valentina Rotondi; Liliana Adriano; David M Brazel; Per Block; Xuejie Ding; Yan Liu; Melinda C Mills

The response of the Italian government to the spread of the coronavirus across Italy has been firm, yet not always effective. Most of the initial interventions targeted the four regions in northern Italy that were the most affected: Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, and Emilia Romagna. In particular, on February 23 rd , the government issued a decree which prohibited the movement of people outside of 10 municipalities located in Lombardy, in the province of Lodi, and a municipality located in Veneto, in the province of Padova. 3 While cases in the province of Bergamo began to increase from Feb 24th, in contrast to Lodi no shutdowns or restrictions were imposed. A few hours later, the Veneto and Lombardy regions issued an ordinance by which all schools of all levels and grades, including Universities, were closed and all cultural, recreational, sporting and religious events, being them public or private, were suspended.