Italians and visitors getting ready to attend the rest of the Venice Carnival or the Milan Fashion week will have a surprise when they wake up Monday morning. As reported on eTurboNews yesterday, both cities and Italy are on high alert fearing a spread of Coronavirus.

The Carnival of Venice is an annual festival held in Venice, Italy. The carnival ends with the Christian celebration of Lent, forty days before Easter, on Shrove Tuesday the day before Ash Wednesday. The festival is world-famous for its elaborate masks.

Venice had two more days for Carnival left and has been stopped abruptly. Authorities now asked everyone to go home. The cancellation of this traditional event and major tourism revenue earner is a blow to the City of Venice, to tradition and tourism for Italy.

milan fashion week

270 km away from Venice, Milan is getting ready for the last day of their famous Fashion Week on Monday. Authorities in the second-largest city in Northern Italy canceled events on Monday surrounding the Fashionweek.

Concerns about a growing number of coronavirus cases in Italy lead to this difficult decision. Better safe than sorry was also the trend in Italy, as it is in many other parts of the world these days.

The number of confirmed cases in Italy soared to 157, making it the largest focus of infections in Europe. Three people have died. Officials in Italy are concerned because they haven’t been able to track down the source of the virus that appears to be spreading quickly in the north of the country.