A pandemic atlas: Italy becomes Europe's viral epicenter

On the morning of Feb. 20, Dr. Annalisa Malara went to work at the public hospital in tiny Codogno, Italy, and broke protocol by ordering up a coronavirus test for a patient. In so doing, she confirmed that Europe’s coronavirus outbreak was under way. Malara’s intuition — to test a 38-year-old Italian marathoner who hadn’t traveled to China or been in contact with a known positive case — sounded the alarm to Italy and the rest of the world: The virus had not only arrived in the West but was circulating locally. Italy would go on to become the epicenter of COVID-19 in Europe and a cautionary tale of what happens when a health care system in even one of the wealthiest parts of the world collapses under the weight of the pandemic sick and dead.