Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte insisted that “we need to stop the panic” amid his country’s snowballing coronavirus problem, with 374 confirmed cases and 12 deaths by Wednesday.

The Lombardy region, the epicenter of the outbreak in the country, reported its first cases among minors, with four children infected, according to CNBC.

But cases are now cropping up outside that epicenter, with infections confirmed as far south as Sicily. The virus has spread rapidly since Friday morning, when there were only three known cases in the country.

But Conte called Tuesday for less sensationalist reporting on the outbreak and urged public broadcaster Rai to dial its coverage down a notch, according to Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

“It’s time to turn down the tone, we need to stop panic,” he said, according to a translation by CNBC.

Italians — who have stormed supermarkets over food shortage fears, and expressed concerns about school closures — are behaving irrationally, he told the Corriere della Serra.

“Panic is a completely unjustified reaction that compromises the overall efficiency of the system and triggers regrettable speculations on the prices of some products,” the official said. “The food supply will be ensured with appropriate measures, especially in the ‘cluster’ areas. Calm is brought back through punctual and transparent communication.”

Meanwhile, Italian officials called for cooperation from the country’s European neighbors.

“Viruses don’t know borders and they don’t stop at them,” Health Minister Roberto Speranza said during a crisis meeting with WHO and European Union representatives in Rome.

The country has defended its handling of the outbreak — though officials have acknowledged concerns about the growing caseload and the fact that “patient zero” has yet to be identified.

Marco Protopapa, an economist at JPMorgan, said in a Tuesday note to CNBC that “there are major question marks about why Italy is the only Western country where the virus is spreading despite the major precautionary that had been previously taken.”

“A possibility seems that the virus spread from a hospitalized patient who was initially treated for other conditions without the application of the safety protocol for the virus,” Protopapa said. “In general, though, this is the first instance among Western countries where the containment measures have not been effective, and it suggests that the virus may end up spreading elsewhere despite authorities’ best efforts.”

With Post wires