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HEALTH

Italy’s tourist attractions reopen with strict rules in place

Many of Italy’s most famous cultural sites are now reopening after being closed for more than three months, with safety measures including temperature checks and mandatory face masks.

Published: 1 June 2020 09:05 CEST
Italy's tourist attractions reopen with strict rules in place
Some of the first visitors in months return to Pompeii on May 26th. Photo: AFP

With travel still heavily restricted until June 3rd, for now Italy's sights will only be accessible to local residents.

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

From Monday, Rome's Colosseum and Vatican Museums reopen to the public, and a major exhibition marking the 500th anniversary of the death of the Renaissance painter Raphael also reopens at Rome's Le Scuderie del Quirinale.

Florence’s Uffizi Gallery is set to reopen on June 3rd, and its Accademia Gallery, home to Michaeloangelo's David, on June 2nd.

Some of the country's most famous historical sites are already open to visitors.

Florence's Piazza del Duomo and the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral. Photo: AFP

The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened on Saturday May 27th, Florence's Palazzo Pitti on Sunday 28th, and the Pompeii archaeological park last Tuesday, May 23rd.

Paestum, the ancient Greek archaeological site near Naples, was the first to reopen – on May 18th, with temperature checks at the entrance and other health measures implemented around the site.

The site's management, which has also tightly restricted visitor numbers, said the new system could be a model for a new kind of “slow tourism” in future.

All tourist sites have strict safety measures in place after reopening.

Visitors to the Colosseum will have to buy advance tickets online, wear face masks, and have their temperature taken at the entrance.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is only allowing 15 visitors at a time, who must wear face masks and an electronic device that warns them if they're within a metre of anyone else.

Florence's Duomo, which reopened on May 22nd, has introduced social-distancing necklaces for visitors which vibrate when wearers get too close to one another, while the Accademia Gallery is trialling a Bluetooth app which vibrates to alert you to other people nearby.

All attractions either require or recommend online booking in advance, with visitors numbers strictly limited.

READ ALSO: 

For now, Italy's historical and cultural sites can only be enjoyed by local residents as restrictions on interregional travel remain in place until June 3rd.

Italy is also preparing to allow in tourists from the EU and UK from that date.

However, some EU countries including Switzerland are warning their citizens against “premature” travel to Italy, and could bar Italians from visiting amid concerns about the country's coronavrus infection rate.

Member comments

  1. “The new system could be a model for a new kind of slow tourism in the future.” If this is the new ‘model’, then Italy can kiss their tourist industry goodbye! To think that this is the ONLY way tour operators and government officials can devise to restrict the number of tourists is outrageous! Mask and this social distancing nonsense was meant to be in place to ‘flatten’ the curve, but if authorities now think they are going to make this a normal requirement, they are sadly mistaken. After 9/11, instead of figuring out how to make air travel safe, 19 years later we are all suspected criminals who require body scans everytime we fly. Thanks, but no thanks….

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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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