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UPDATE: Italy announces regions under red and orange zone restrictions

Italy's prime minister confirmed on Wednesday night that four regions have been declared red zones and two orange.

Published: 4 November 2020 20:24 CET
UPDATE: Italy announces regions under red and orange zone restrictions
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte gave a televised address on Wednesday evening. Screenshot: Palazzo Chigi/Youtube

Under Italy's latest emergency decree, a new national three-tier framework means some Covid-19 rules will now differ based on where you are in Italy.

The rules were set to come into force on Thursday November 5th, but have now been delayed until Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said, in order to give affected businesses time to adjust.

GRAPHS: Track the spread of coronavirus in every region of Italy

Regions are to be divided into three categories: red, orange and yellow, under a new “traffic-light” system based on how severe the coronavirus situation is locally. (The government initially designated the lowest-risk zones green, but since changed the code to yellow to make clear that they still require caution.) 

People in the highest-risk zones are told to stay within their comune, or municipality, and are only allowed to leave for work, study, health or other essential reasons, as Italy brings in the strictest measures since its two-month spring lockdown was eased.

Conte gave a televised address on Wednesday evening, two days after the new system was announced, detailing which regions would be under which category.

He confirmed that the regions are classified as follows:

Red (high risk) zones: Lombardy, Calabria, Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta

Orange (medium risk) zones: Puglia, Sicily

Yellow zones: All other regions;  Abruzzo, Basilicata, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lazio, Liguria, Marche, Molise  Sardinia, Tuscany  Umbria, Veneto, and the Provinces of Trento and Bolzano
 
“With these measures, we can cool the contagion curve and regain some semblance of normality,” Conte said in his address.
 
Red-zone restrictions will resemble those imposed earlier this year during a severe national
lockdown, with residents' movements curtailed.
 
 
But unlike then, churches and parks will be open, hairdressers will operate and restaurants can serve take-out food until the nighttime curfew.
 
Retail stores in those areas not selling essential goods such as food and pharmaceuticals are to shut, and people will be restricted from travelling outside their home town or city.
 
Schools will also have to move to distance learning from the second grade of middle school upwards in red zone areas, while this is only mandatory for high school classes in other areas
 
On a national level a 10pm curfew is in force from Thursday, museums will shut, and shopping centres will be closed at the weekend.
 
Italy's Health Ministry decides which region is in which zone based on the advice of its Technical Scientific Committee (CTS), effectively bypassing regional authorities – many of which have said they were against a local lockdown or other tough measures.
 
 
The CTS takes 21 indicators into account including each region's Rt number (which shows the transmission rate) as well as factors like hospital bed capacity and whether local health authorities are able to successfully trace the source of outbreaks.
 
The Ministry of Health is to revise the situation weekly and issue new ordinances every 15 days, according to the new decree.
 
Find all of The Local's latest coronavirus updates here.

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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.”

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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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