page_title: COVID-19 pandemic in Italy
section_title: Export restrictions and aid received
hierarchical_section_title: COVID-19 pandemic in Italy / Reactions abroad / Export restrictions and aid received
caption_attribution_description: English: Albanians physicians.
context_page_description: The COVID-19 pandemic in Italy is part of the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Italy on 31 January 2020, when two Chinese tourists in Rome tested positive for the virus. One week later an Italian man repatriated back to Italy from the city of Wuhan, China, was hospitalised and confirmed as the third case in Italy. A cluster of cases was later detected, starting with 16 confirmed cases in Lombardy on 21 February, and 60 additional cases and the first deaths on 22 February. By the beginning of March, the virus had spread to all regions of Italy. On 6 March 2020, the Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care published medical ethics recommendations regarding triage protocols that might need to be employed.
  On 31 January, the Italian government suspended all flights to and from China and declared a state of emergency. In February, eleven municipalities in northern Italy were identified as the centres of the two main Italian clusters and placed under quarantine. The majority of positive cases in other regions traced back to these two clusters.
context_section_description: The Italian government asked for medical equipment from the European Union mechanism of civil protection, and on 11 March complained about the slow response of the other European countries. The Italian Permanent Representative to the European Union, Maurizio Massari, wrote: "unfortunately, not a single EU country responded to the Commission’s call."  Eventually, Germany, France and Austria donated millions of protective masks to Italy, however aid arrived from non-EU countries like China, Russia and Cuba before it arrived from any other EU country.
  The lack of masks became an issue during the peak of the emergency, partly because of the requisitions of imported goods bought by Italy in transport hubs in other countries such as Poland and Turkey. Masks were confiscated by mistake in Czechia. It was happen during a raid against Chinese reseller Zhou Lingjian.
  Since early March, the German government restricted the export of products essential to its national health service. Italian distributors were advised they could not be supplied with surgical gowns, protective masks, glasses, particulate respirators, nor visors. France also imposed similar export restrictions and the German health minister Jens Spahn defended Germany's decision. On 12 March, the German ministry issued a decree suspending the export restriction in particular emergency cases, and promised to send one million protective masks to Italy.
  On 13 March, a team of nine Chinese experts, among whom there was the manager of the 40,000 Chinese doctors who had been sent to Wuhan and a leading cardio-pulmonary reanimation doctor, arrived in Rome to share their expertise. The Chinese Red Cross brought 31 tons of respiratory devices, electrocardiographs, 40 ventilators, tens of thousands of masks, and other medical equipment supplied by the hospital of the School of Medicine of Shanghai Jiaotong University. While the head of the Italian Red Cross, Francesco Rocca said these medical supplies were donated by the Chinese Red Cross, other sources claimed that these were paid products and services. Chinese billionaire and Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma also donated 500,000 masks and other medical supplies, which landed at Liege Airport in Belgium on 13 March and were then sent to Italy.
  On 17 March, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Health, Sandra Zampa announced the purchase of many new ventilators as well as the importing of one and a half million masks from South Africa.
  The Agnelli family donated €10 million to the Government's coronavirus funds. The family's companies Fiat and Ferrari also brought 150 ventilators and offered to help make new ventilator units, in addition to providing a fleet of vehicles to be used to distribute food and medical supplies to the elderly.
  On 21 March, the Cuban government sent 52 medical staff (35 doctors and 17 nurses) specialised in infectious diseases who had dealt with the Ebola outbreak. They arrived in Milan on 22 March and entered service in Cremona on 24 March.
  On 21 March, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the United States Air Force "sent a C-130 filled with medical supplies to Italy". On 30 March, US President Donald Trump said that the US was to send $100 million worth of medical and hospital supplies to Italy.
  After a phone call with Conte, Russian president Vladimir Putin arranged the Russian army to send medical help to Italy. On 22 March 2020, Russia sent nine military transport planes with eight mobile brigades of military medics, a team of about one hundred military virologists and epidemiologists, special disinfection vehicles, and other medical equipment and pharmaceuticals to Italy. The fuselage of the plane also carried a message for the nation, which read: "From Russia with Love". President of Lombardy Attilio Fontana and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio expressed their gratitude for the aid.
  The US-based evangelical group Samaritan's Purse opened a coronavirus field hospital in the parking lot of Cremona hospital.
  On 24 March, Germany took in six coronavirus patients from the Bergamo hospital to be tre
caption: Albanian physicians arrived in Fiumicino Airport, April 2020
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