Italy tries a return to some normalcy after virus closures

ROME (AP) — Authorities in Italy have decided to re-open schools and museums in some of the areas less hard-hit by the coronavirus outbreak in which the country has the most cases outside of Asia, as Italians yearn to go back to normal.

In the more heavily affected regions — Lombardy and Veneto in the north — authorities on Friday were leaning toward opening schools there, too.

At least 650 people have tested positive in Italy, almost entirely in the country's productive north.

“The aim is to return to normalcy,'' Veneto Gov. Luca Zaia told state TV in an interview.

Zaia noted that 79 of the 133 people in Veneto with COVID-19 “have no symptoms and are in perfect health.”

While Italy is easing its restrictions, other parts of the world are still closing down activities and venues.

Italy's neighbor, Switzerland, on Friday banned all events involving more than 1,000 people until March 15, putting paid to the Geneva International Motor Show that attracts tens of thousands of visitors every year.

In Japan, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea will be closed from Saturday to March 15, operator Oriental Land Co., said.

In South Korea, which has the next highest number of cases in the world after China, the popular K-Pop group BTD canceled a concert planned for April in Seoul.

After France saw a sudden jump of 20 new virus cases around the country, authorities were testing a raft of people, limiting some public activities and trying to determine the source of the new cases.

Most are concentrated in the Oise region north of Paris, where a teacher with the virus died this week and where the source of the outbreak is unknown.

So far since Thursday night, new cases with links to Italy have been reported in Nigeria — the first known case in sub-Saharan Africa —...