The Italian government announced that it will temporarily shut down all schools and universities as the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the country.
The closures will go into effect on Thursday and will last until the middle of the month, according to CNBC.
As of Wednesday morning, there have been more than 2,500 coronavirus cases in Italy, which have resulted in 79 deaths as of the day prior. The nation saw an increase of 27 deaths from Monday to Tuesday, according to Italian media reports.
At one point, Italy was the worst affected country outside of east Asia until Iran surpassed it in both number of cases and death toll. A Wednesday announcement from the country revealed that 92 Iranians have died from the disease while more than 2,900 have been diagnosed.
Trump announced last week that he was placing regions of Italy and South Korea under a travel advisory and asked that no nonessential travel take place. He also banned all travel from Iran and the entry of any foreign nationals who visited the country in the past 14 days.
Italy has been singled out as the location of the infection of at least one American diagnosed with the virus. A Rhode Island woman started showing symptoms after returning to the United States from Italy.
Around 3,000 individuals have died from the virus worldwide, with a majority of the deaths coming from Wuhan, China, which is the epicenter of the illness.
