Italy was the first European country to report a major surge in cases of the coronavirus, with numbers quickly climbing into the hundreds.

The authorities have responded with travel restrictions in the north of the country that are bound to hit the economy.

So far, a number of towns in Lombardy in northern Italy have been locked down, with very limited numbers of people being allowed in or out, reports BBC.

That matters, because northern Italy is the country’s industrial powerhouse. Lombardy alone accounts for 40% of Italian industrial output. Milan is Italy’s key centre for finance and a range of other services.

Milan is not one of the areas covered by the shutdown. But even so, major tourist and cultural sites such as the cathedral (the Duomo) and the opera house La Scala have been closed.

Milan is also one of the world’s major fashion centres. Fashion Week in late February did survive – after a fashion, as it were – but it was affected. For instance, Giorgio Armani’s collection was shown without an audience.

Had the coronavirus arrived a few weeks earlier, it seems likely there would have been much more disruption to this major event in Milan’s calendar.