Down in northern Italy, hospitals are overwhelmed, leaving health officials to make difficult choices about who to treat.

I see youse are overflowing in some hospitals or even building tents to test and treat.

The infected Italian government has ordered people to stay home and seek permission for essential travel.

There's also a 6 p.m. Curfew and enforced space between people in public areas.

Normally crowded tourist attractions air nearly deserted, making historic sites look like ghost towns.

And in the city of Rome, known for its traffic jams, streets are practically empty.

A B C's correspondent, James Long, been traveled back to England from Italy this morning and filed this report tonight.

The death toll in Italy Soaring Corona virus, taking 100 and 68 Maur lives after nearly 100 died the day before.

Fatalities.

Now over 600 Italy's elderly population, the overwhelming victims, the number of total cases topping 10,000 hospitals in the north.

Finding it hard to cope, making difficult choices about who to treat.

I see youse are overflowing some hospitals building tents to test and treat the infected, the virus sucking the life out of the rest of the country.

60 million people in effective quarantine.

No travel allowed for most unless it's for work or an approved reason.

Police enforcing the lock down the borders are tightening temperature check points for those who cross between Italy and Austria.

Italy Schools closed, sporting events canceled.

People wait in long lines for groceries.

Security guards patrol the entrances, letting only a few people in a time.

Authorities urging people to keep about three feet away from others.

Pat Lighter, an American living in northern Italy, showing us that do not cross line at her grocery store.

It was red tape on the floor, marking neater distances from the checkout counter.

When you went to the deli counter, it was a vagrant tape line so that you could order from a minute away and call out your order.

Italy has the worst outbreak outside Asia, but China today reported only 19 new cases.

Prime Minister G visited the epicenter of the virus in Wuhan for the first time, and hospital staff waved to discharge patients, raising hope that the worst there has passed.

But Italy remains gripped by the crisis.

We got on the last British Airways flight out.

There are people everywhere, and it looks very clear that a lot of people are trying to get out of Italy.

But getting out is becoming increasingly hard to do.

And James lawman joins me now live from London.

We're glad you made it, James.

I know you're self quarantine.

There we were seeing that video of people being having their temperature checked at the border.

What was your experience as you left?

Yeah.

So as you approach the passport gates, someone holds up what looks like an iPad and your scandals.

You go past in your wave through then Life is kind of normal.

In the departure lounge, you make your way onto the plane and then on the British side, as we disembarked who are handed forms on the form, it kind of said, you've we advised this Self isolation, by the way, is not mandatory.

But the government advises those have come back from Italy to self isolate.

But there is no temperature check.

I was surprised to see upon arrival on upon, you know, thing kind of passport scanning.

You would imagine you would see maybe some kind of scanners there, some temperature scanners, nothing like that on the British side.

And there's been a lot of talk here in the United Kingdom about people coming back from high risk zones and those those checks not being in place.

So I was surprised to see that it was certainly an extraordinary experience that I've only got to roam.

The day before on the airport, Waas basically empty the airplane itself from London to Rome had about 15 people on it.

And so as soon as the announcement came out, these emergency measures that just come to the Italian prime minister put forward the other night.

It was a mad rush, my phone app.

I tried to book my flight, move it up.

Everything was dying.

It was very, very difficult for people to get flights out.

And actually that b a flight that one I got was the last British Airways flight out of the country on a lot of the airlines A counseling their flights out of Italy altogether, and James, looking at the situation to delude Now it seems to have gotten so bad so quickly.

What are your sources on the ground telling you about how this unfolded.

Look, it's it's really difficult to know anecdotally when you're there.

Italians will say, Look, we have our elderly at home.

These are members of our family that we cherish and they spend time with us.

They're not like other Europeans, perhaps in North America as well, where elderly people tend to get sort of bust off to a nursing home or elderly care home in Italy, they stay in the family unit.

But what that means, possibly, is that younger people who may have the virus but don't demonstrate symptoms are more mobile and they carry it.

Andi.

They carry it to places where there are elderly people who then aren't, as you know, able to survive it.

So I think this idea of young and old mixing a lot mawr in this northern region anyway could be something.

This could be part of the reason why Italy has has been hit so hard.

Also, it's important to say that patient zero has still not yet been found.

The person that brought the virus into Italy from China, and it could be that they came in much earlier than anyone expected.

But it is a sad thing to see Andi.

I was really struck.

I got very early this morning in the cab on the way to the airport on you know what it's like.

You always talk to cab drivers everywhere you go in the world.

And for the first time in my life, the cab driver started to cry.

This is a man in his forties or fifties on my talent is not good, but through Google translate.

I could basically understand him to be really, really worried about his elderly relatives.

Because imagine, consider what it must be like to not be able to visit the people you love, Aunt, to wonder if your presence we'll put them further at risk on that really is a sense throughout Italy now that the elderly are really on the front lines of this on.

He was just crying, and I could be anywhere I really understood was Mama.

And I could tell that, you know, this was something that really upset him.

So look, the Italians are doing everything they can to do something about this.

I think just every country wants to get out in front of it.

That was the sense that perhaps You know, every kind of precaution that was being taken was just a little bit too slow that the virus was always a couple of steps ahead.

So they're really hoping that this works.

But it's certainly the elderly in Italy are really suffering right now.

It's heartbreaking, James.

Hopefully, these new precautions have a positive impact.

Thanks.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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