The most active hot spot right now is Italy.

Nearly 200 people there have died in just the last 24 hours.

Airports have been empty for several days, and now all stores, except for pharmacies and food markets, will be closed.

Take a look at the ST Peter's Square at the Vatican, empty as the country with the highest death rate grapples with getting the spread under control.

All this, as a doctor on the front lines is issuing an alarming warning for his counterparts in America.

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C's Maggie ruling is tracking the latest from London, where a health official there has announced they have Cove in 19.

Life in Italy has officially crawled to a halt.

People are finally taking the country's lock down seriously.

It took a televised plea from prime minister content to protect Italy's older population.

The country hit with an alarming rate of infection that's been difficult to contain more than 2300 new cases of cove in 19 in just the past 24 hours, bringing the number infected two, more than 12,000 and claiming the lives of 827.

It's health care system strains so badly medical professionals fear resource is may run out trying to shut down everything.

Here.

It was like a bomb exploded, and all of a sudden you are overwhelmed by the Italy's government heating the calls.

Everything but food markets and pharmacies are shutting down.

Signs of a strained economy are palatable.

ABC is Megan Williams is in Rome, where businesses were struggling to survive even before the total lock down.

Just standing at my local pizzeria, Sandra, who is the Pizza YOLO?

The guy who makes the pizza says that Hey, has one more day, probably to go like this.

He's only have one client, and then he's gonna close that it's just not sustainable to keep his business open.

Food shopping is the last sense of normalcy people have here.

People are not hoarding the way they are in North America.

People have smaller homes.

They also have different habits that go shopping every day, and for now, people are keeping those habits.

But fear is almost as contagious as the virus itself.

The World Health Organization declaring Cove in 19 a pandemic it would be a tsunami will be eating all the country unless you take immediate actions.

Otherwise, it would be too little and too late.

Nations with infection scrambling to test treats quarantine In the UK store shelves left empty as shoppers race for the last rolls of toilet paper and pasta.

Nearly everyone we've met coming in out of the supermarket says they are here to stock up on supplies, one woman says.

48 hours ago, she didn't really think about it.

Now, with all of this new news coming out the new numbers, she's worried.

She has four little kids she's worried about.

Another man says he has a three year old at home.

He wants to make sure she stays safe.

He's been to four other supermarkets, zero toilet paper.

And even though Europe's open borders are tightening and may be too late to keep the rate of infection low everywhere else you gaze, Health minister announced last night she, too, was infected with the virus, tweeting more worried about my 84 year old mum, who was staying with me and began with the cough.

Today she's being tested tomorrow, China's locked down measures seemed to have worked.

Infections there are dropping, but only after a month of keeping million's under strict quarantine.

But Italy and other countries don't have the luxury of time to save their aging populations.

And Maggie Rowley joins us now, Maggie, the situation for many on the ground in Italy, it's just gut wrenching.

The health care system there is just extremely strained Lindsay got Raging is a perfect way to describe it.

The reports we're hearing on the ground there almost hard to believe at this point.

It really is being described as an entire health care system that is on the very brink of collapse.

Many doctors there are saying there now are having to approach patients and almost like wartime triage, they're having to make very difficult life or death decisions.

We know they're very low on ventilators right now.

The government is already talking about that triage situation, having to prioritize how they're going to save the most number of people.

And it's looking like they may have to prioritize the young, healthy people, which Lindsay we know.

That could mean that could be to the detriment of people that have pre existing conditions.

And there's even talk now of putting an age limit on who gets ventilators that some of these hard hit hospitals potentially an age limit of his youngest, 60 years old.

I mean, that's like people's parents, people's grand parents.

I mean, these are emotional times, not only for people in Italy, for the doctors and nurses that are on the front lines, having to make difficult decisions again.

Describing it is almost like a war time in some of these hospitals.

Lindsay, It's just hard to believe, right?

And Maggie, we heard from that doctor.

You've also traveled to some of those hot zones in Asia.

Yourself should totally be a warning to the U.

S.

Lindsay.

This is really the big takeaway, right?

How many infectious disease experts are saying that places like the UK like the US they're just 2 to 3 weeks out from becoming Italy?

You know, I was in Italy a little over a month ago when they had one of their first scares and to see what has happened to that country and 5 to 6 weeks since then.

It's unbelievable.

There's no other word to describe it.

People kept saying, How could it happen here in Europe?

And that's what's fueling this fear here throughout the country.

Which country is going to be next?

But we also were in Japan recently in other countries in Asia.

And when I was in Japan, what I noticed was that so many people were taking this incredibly seriously, already practising things like social distancing and Seif self isolation as well as you know, sort of a very proper self hygiene as well.

And we've seen some of the cases in places in Asia, a plateau or even start to decline.

Many experts are crediting these service is that people are doing so.

If there's any major takeaway that we can learn from these other countries, it's now is the time to act.

Now is the time to take it seriously before it gets as bad as places like Italy.

Lindsey Okay, our Maggie really reporting from London for us tonight, Maggie.

Thanks so much.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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