Lockdown to affect 16 million
ITALY ordered a virtual lockdown across much of its wealthy north yesterday, including the financial capital Milan, in a drastic new attempt to try to contain a rapidly growing outbreak of Covid-19.
The unprecedented restrictions, which aim to limit gatherings and curb movement, would affect about 16 million people and is set to be enforced until April 3.
They were signed into law overnight by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
The new measures say people should not enter or leave Lombardy, Italy’s richest region, as well as 14 provinces in four other regions, including the cities of Venice, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia and Rimini.
Conte said nobody would be allowed to move in or out of these areas or within them, unless they had proven work-related reasons for doing so or health issues. Leave was also cancelled for health-care workers.
“We are facing a national emergency. We chose from the beginning to take the line of truth and transparency, and now we’re moving with lucidity and courage, with firmness and determination,” Conte told reporters in the middle of the night.
“We have to limit the spread of the virus and prevent our hospitals from being overwhelmed,” he said.
Italy has been hit harder by the crisis than anywhere else in Europe so far, with the number of Covid-19 cases jumping more than 1 200 in a 24-hour period – the biggest daily rise since the epidemic began in the country two weeks ago. The latest total of cases stood at 5 883 with 233 deaths.
Antonio Pesenti, head of the Lombardy regional crisis response unit, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper the health-care system in Lombardy was “a step away from collapse”, as intensive care facilities came under growing strain from the new cases.
“We’re now being forced to set up intensive-care treatment in corridors, operating theatres, and recovery rooms. We’ve emptied entire hospital sections to make space for seriously sick people,” he said.
The Milan stock exchange, which has seen a 17% drop in its all-share index since the crisis broke last month, was scheduled to open normally today, but one trader said he expected “a violent sell-off” as markets digest the lockdown of Italy’s economic heartland.
The World Health Organisation said it fully supported the actions taken by Italy, which were in line with its guidelines that governments should try as much as possible to contain the spread of the virus.
But with the Italian economy already on the edge of recession, some local politicians pushed back against the measures, which leaked out before regional governors were consulted.
The head of Lombardy’s neighbouring region, Veneto, Luca Zaia, complained that he had not been properly consulted and was unhappy that three provinces in his region, including Venice, had been included.
“We do not understand the rationale of a measure that appears scientifically disproportionate to the epidemiological trend,” he wrote on Facebook.
On Saturday, health-care officials had expressed alarm at the apparent lack of concern in the general public, as fine weekend weather attracted large crowds to the ski slopes outside Milan.
But streets were notably quieter than normal as northern cities woke up to the news yesterday.
“Given how the contagion has been spreading, I think it was the right thing to do,” said Toni Siracusa, a restaurant owner waiting in a queue outside a supermarket in Milan that was restricting entry to prevent close contact.