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Italy confirms travel can restart between all regions from June 3rd

The Italian government has confirmed that unrestricted travel between regions can restart from Wednesday June 3rd as planned, with health experts urging caution.

Published: 30 May 2020 11:02 CEST
Updated: 30 May 2020 14:25 CEST
Italy confirms travel can restart between all regions from June 3rd
Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

The final confirmation came late on Friday after ministers reviewed the most recent regional health monitoring data in a weekly report produced by the Ministry of Health with the Higher Health Institute.

“The current law decree provides for interregional movements from June 3rd,” health minister Roberto Speranza stated following the decision. “At the moment there are no reasons to review the planned reopening.”

As well as some international travel, unrestricted movement will be allowed in and out of all regions, including Lombardy, which remains by far the hardest-hit region in the country.

READ ALSO: Who is allowed to travel to Italy from June 3rd?

However, some southern regions with relatively few cases are now considering bringing in their own local restrictions on people arriving from the north.

 
The official Health Ministry report, based on regional data following the last round of reopenings on May 18th, urged caution in restarting regional travel.
 
It said that the current situation “is positive, on the whole, with respect to the first phase of transition” although “signs of transmission persist, with new hotspots that depict a fluid epidemiological situation in many regions.”
 

Photo: AFP

Italian newspaper Il Corriere wrote on Saturday that allowing regions to reopen “sends an important signal of economic recovery.”

“The problem of Lombardy remains, the caution of scientists too,” it continued. “But postponing the reopening for a week would have triggered unsustainable tensions and forced the government to keep foreign borders closed.”

Italy had already confirmed that some international travel would be allowed from June 3, and Il Corriere added that postpoing regional travel at this point could result in “unequal treatment between Italians and foreigners.”

READ ALSO: 

Ministers had previously suggested that they may not allow travel from regions deemed to be “high risk”, and threatened that regional travel would not be allowed if large gatherings continued, amid concerns about partying after bars reopened on May 18th.

On Thursday, a report from Gimbe, Italy's group for evidence-based medicine, warned that it would be “risky” to reopen travel to and from three northern regions – Lombardy, Liguria, and Piedmont, which it said are still seeing a high number of cases.

Italian medical experts have also cast doubt on the accuracy of health data being reported by some regions, particularly Lombardy, with the head of Gimbe, Dr. Nino Cartabellotta, saying “there is a reasonable suspicion that the regions are using tricks so they don't have to close again.”

In an interview with The Local last week, Cartabellotta said the government was pushing ahead with relaxing measures without having had enough time to see the effects of the last round of reopenings, from May 18th, on the contagion curve.

According to the official figures, more than 33,000 people have now died of the virus in Italy – around 16,000 of them in the Lombardy region alone.

There were 516 new cases recorded on Friday and 87 deaths, 38 of which were recorded in Lombardy.

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

READ ALSO:

Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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