Italy has confirmed that it will shut all schools from Thursday for 10 days as it battles to contain the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak.
Tourists wearing protective masks in Venice. Photo: ANDREA PATTARO / AFP
All professional sport in the country, including Serie A football matches, will also be played behind closed doors for a month.
A total of 107 people have now been killed by the coronavirus in Italy, which has the most serious outbreak in Europe.
PM Giuseppe Conte said the health service risked being overwhelmed.
Most of the more than 3000 cases are in the north but others have been confirmed in 19 of Italy's 20 regions.
Globally about 3200 people have died and more than 90,000 have been infected, the vast majority in China, where the virus emerged late last year.
The World Health Organization has so far stopped short of declaring a pandemic - an epidemic spreading across the world through local transmission - but on Wednesday Germany's health minister said the coronavirus now met the definition.
"The situation is changing very quickly ... what's clear is that we have not yet reached the peak of the outbreak," Jens Spahn said.
Confirmed cases have been reported in 81 countries, with Italy, Iran and South Korea emerging as hotspots outside China.
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Conte called on all Italians to "do their part".
"We are in the same boat, whoever has the helm has the duty to indicate the route, we must make an extra effort, we must do it together," he said.
Education Minister Lucia Azzolina said she hoped students would be able to resume classes as soon as possible.
"My commitment is to ensure that the essential public service, albeit from a distance, is provided to all our students," she said.
Local media said health experts and Italy's health ministry had been in favour of closing schools.
Italy's death toll from the virus had jumped by 28 to 107, the Civil Protection Agency said on Wednesday. Most of the deaths have been in the Lombardy region around Milan, and in northern areas near Bologna and Venice.
Earlier measures - including the quarantining of 11 towns near Milan with a combined population of 50,000 - have failed to stop the spread of infections.
Italy is now also considering closing cinemas and theatres and banning public events, Reuters news agency reported, quoting a draft government decree.
The decree also tells Italians to avoid hugging and shaking hands as much as possible.
Which other countries have closed schools?
Mainland China and Hong Kong, Japan, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates had already closed schools or were about to do so - affecting millions of schoolchildren.
France has also closed about 120 schools in areas with the largest numbers of coronavirus infections.
Primary and secondary schools have been shut in an area north of Paris where the main cluster of French cases has emerged and where two people who have died of the virus lived.
- BBC
