MILAN – Italy has two weeks to stop the rising rate of transmission of coronavirus or it risks “following in the footsteps" of European neighbors where exponential spreads have ushered back harsh restrictions, a virologist on the front lines says.Italian health officials have declared that the resurgence of COVID-19 has reached an “acute phase." Massimo Galli, the director of infectious diseases at Milan’s Luigi Sacco hospital, said Italy’s surge — which hit pandemic highs of new daily infections this week — is not the result of record testing, as policy makers have suggested, but a sign of a real return among the population most at risk.