Bergano today. The province has become the most infected in Italy with 7,072 cases and 1,328 deaths

“My father went early, on March 7, after a fever, cough and a sudden drop in his blood oxygen,” said Mirco Gualdi, 51. “I drove him to the hospital, he tested positive for the virus and died four days later.”

What happened next surprised him. “I thought they would test me, my sister and my mother, but they told us the risk was small. It’s true we didn’t get sick, but what if we were positive without symptoms and infected others?”

Mr Gualdi’s father died as the virus crept silently into his home town of Leffe near Bergamo in the northern Italian region of Lombardy in early March. Close by, the army was scouting out where to set up road blocks to seal off the