Why Was Italy Hit So Hard?

I have been puzzling over this.  Now I have an answer:

The coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, has now swept through 126 countries, infected close to 170,000 people worldwide, and is responsible for more than 6,400 deaths as of March 15. China is leading the world in the number of confirmed cases and deaths. What many people find shocking is that Italy and Iran are the second- and third-hardest hit nations in this outbreak.

By any common-sense measure, both countries should have much lower numbers of confirmed cases and deaths because they are geographically far from the epicenter of the outbreak. The reason these two countries are suffering the most outside China is mainly due to their close ties with Beijing, primarily through the “One Belt and One Road” (OBOR) initiative.

UPDATE (3/24). Dr. Vito Caiati comments (bolding added to express my approbation):

In support of your small post of yesterday (“Why Was Italy Hit So Hard?”), which, referencing Helen Raleigh’s article in The Federalist, calls attention to Italy’s integration into Communist China’s OBOR scheme, the data on the large number of Chinese citizens residing in that Mediterranean country is particularly salient. 

As of 1 January 2019, these equaled 299, 823 persons, or almost 6 percent of all foreigners living in Italy. In terms of the Chinese virus that is devastating the world, the data is even more revealing, since five of the six regions in Italy with the greatest morbidity from this disease (Lombardia, Toscana, Emilia Romagna, and Piemonte [“Coronavirus, “La Mappa del contagion in Italia,” La Corriere della Sera, 24 March 2002, 1) are those with the highest numbers of foreign Chinese residents (“Cinese in Italia” (https://www.tuttitalia.it/statistiche/cittadini-stranieri/repubblica-popolare-cinese/ ). 

Overall, these five regions account for 35% of the total number Chinese nationals in the country, and the industrial and commercial center of Italy, Lombardia, which has been hardest hit by the epidemic, had the greatest number such persons, 34,182, or 12 percent of the overall national total. 

Every effort will be made by the globalist elite in Italy and their European and American counterparts to hide this and other disturbing truths about the origins, initial history, and propagation of this disease, since their revelation would jeopardize the material and ideological foundations of their hegemony.

Regards,

Vito 

Might we speak of the Silk (Rail) Roading of Italy?

Some wit just e-mailed me: "One Belt and One Road and One Virus."