Italy springs to life after world’s longest lockdown
Italians were free to stroll and visit relatives for the first time in nine weeks yesterday as Europe’s hardest-hit country eased back the world’s longest remaining Covid-19 lockdown.
More than four million people — an estimated 72 per cent of them men — returned to their construction sites and factories as the economically and emotionally shattered country tried to get back to work.
The sounds of banging and drilling echoed across the city here and a group of men drank espresso out of plastic cups in front of the Pantheon, the former Roman temple, as cafes reopened for takeout service.
“We can hear more noise now,” grocery story owner Daniela said. “It’s better than this frightening silence.”
But bars and even ice cream parlours would remain shut. The use of public transport would be discouraged and everyone would have to wear masks in indoor public spaces.
Italy became the first Western democracy to shut down virtually everything in the face of an illness that had officially killed 28,884 — the most in Europe — and some fear thousands more.
The lives of Italians began closing in around them as it became increasingly apparent that the first batch of infections in provinces around Milan were spiralling out of control.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte began by putting a quarter of the population in the northern industrial heartland on lockdown on March 8.
The sudden measure frightened many — fearful of being locked in together with the gathering threat — into fleeing to less affected regions further south.
The danger of the virus spreading with them and incapacitating the south’s less developed health care system forced Conte to announce a nationwide lockdown on March 9.