Italy’s Conte interviewed on lockdowns

ROME — Prosecutors questioned Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte on Friday about the lack of a coronavirus lockdown on two towns in northern Italy’s Lombardy region that became one of the hardest-hit areas of the country’s outbreak.

Doctors and virologists have said the two-week delay in quarantining Alzano and Nembro helped allow the virus to spread in Bergamo province, which saw a 571 percent increase in excess deaths in March compared with the average of the previous five years.

Lead prosecutor Maria Cristina Rota questioned Conte and the health and interior ministers at the premier’s office in Rome. She stressed that the officials were interviewed as witnesses in the investigation, not suspects.

To date, no one has been placed under investigation and it’s unclear what, if any, criminal responsibility might be assigned to public officials for decisions taken or not in the onetime epicenter of Europe’s outbreak.

The probe is looking into whether responsibility fell to the national government in Rome, or the Lombardy regional authorities, to create a “red zone” around the two towns.

After interviewing Lombardy regional officials last month, Rota said the situation probably was the national government’s responsibility. But Conte’s office has pointed to norms that delegate such authority to regions.

Italy registered its first domestic positive case Feb. 21 in the Lombardy province of Lodi. Ten towns in the province were immediately locked down to try to contain the spread.

Alzano and Nembro registered their first positive cases two days later, but the government didn’t quarantine them for two weeks until all of Lombardy was locked down March 7.