Italy to enter another lockdown amid rise in COVID-19 cases

Almost half of Italy’s regions, including Rome, Milan, and Venice, will be going under new COVID-19 restrictions from March 15 amid a recent surge of coronavirus cases, which has also been marred by the presence of new variants of the virus. Meanwhile, over the Easter weekend, the whole of Italy will be considered as a “red zone” and will be put under lockdown, from April 3 to 5.

The restrictions will be effective till April 6, says a decree passed on Friday by Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s cabinet. 

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In the “red zones”, all non-essentials shos will be closed and people can only leave their house for work or health reasons. Meanwhile, in “orange zones,” people can only leave their town and region for work or health reasons and they can only avail of delivery and take-away services from bars and restaurants. 

Regions that have reported more than 250 per 100,000 residents will automatically go into lockdown, as other regions can also classify to go under restrictions. Regions will be labelled red or orange as per the level of contagion. 

The government is putting Italy’s most regions under lockdown to get the R rate, the number of people one infected person will give the infection to, down to one, nation’s health ministry said. 

Italy has recorded 3,175,807 cases of coronavirus as of now and 101,564 have died from the COVID-19 disease in the European nation.