Italian police block roads around Codogno

Italian police on Monday set up road blocks at the entrances to the northern town of Codogno as Italy scrambled to check the spread of Europe's first major outbreak of the new viral disease.

Amid rapidly rising numbers of infections and a third death, Italy has called off the popular Venice Carnival, scrapped major league football matches in the stricken area and shuttered theaters, including Milan's legendary La Scala.

In Lombardy, a populous region which includes the country's financial capital, Milan, nearly all the cases of COVID-19 were in the countryside, mainly in Codogno and nine neighboring towns.

In those towns, only grocery stores and pharmacies were permitted to open, and people weren't supposed to enter or leave the towns.

So far in Italy 152 cases have been detected and three people have died.