Police in Italy are forcing customers in cafes to stay one metre apart in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Giuseppe Conte, the Italian prime minister, announced this and other measures to contain the virus on Monday.

Police across the country have started to patrol cafes to ensure people keep their distance from one another and that shops shut at 6pm each day.

Massimo Leonardo, who runs a market stall, said: "It's bad. People are terrorised. I've never seen anything like it."

As of Tuesday, 631 people had died from the disease in Italy, making it the second-most affected country behind China.

It became the first country to order a nationwide lockdown, which went into force on Tuesday.

Since the so-called red zone was extended to the whole country, Italy has experienced its most severe limits on movement since the Second World War.

Lorenzo Codogno, a former Italian treasury chief economist, said on Tuesday that the country’s economic output had been reduced by between 10 and 15 per cent due to the lockdown.

Amid the economic fallout, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen tried to reassure EU member states on Tuesday. She said: "We will use all the tools at our disposal to make sure that the European economy weathers this storm.”

She added that a joint investment fund of €25bn (£22bn) would be established to help vulnerable parts of the EU’s economy, including healthcare and labour markets.

Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown Show all 12 1 /12 Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown The Via Partenope in Naples is empty after Italy was put on lockdown on 10 March Reuters Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown A waiter stands by empty tables outside a restaurant in St Mark's Square in Venice on 9 March Reuters Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown Empty stands during a football match between Sassuolo and Brescia at the Mapei stadium in Reggio Emilia, northern Italy on 9 March AP Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown Shops are shuttered on an empty street in Venice on 9 March Reuters Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown People keep a safe distance while lining up to enter a post office in Rome on 10 March AFP/Getty Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown A canal and the roads next to it are completely empty on 9 March Getty Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown A completely empty bridge in Venice on 9 March Getty Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown A canal pathway in Venice is empty after Italy was put on lockdown Getty Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown An empty square in Venice on 9 March Getty Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown A nearly empty tram drives through Milan on 10 March AFP/Getty Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown An empty bakery in Milan on 10 March AFP/Getty Streets of Italy empty in coronavirus lockdown An empty street in Milan on 10 March AFP/Getty

Elsewhere, China only reported 24 new cases on Wednesday, signalling a significant reduction from the thousands of infections recorded per day last month.

President Xi Jinping went to Wuhan, the city where the disease was first identified in December 2019, on Tuesday and said: "We will certainly defeat this epidemic."

Yang Tianxiao, a finance worker in Beijing, said things there were slowly returning to normal as the city’s government reduced restrictions.