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BUREAUCRACY

Until when will Italy’s state of emergency be extended?

With the current state of alarm period set to end on January 31 and Covid-19 infections on the rise, several Italian newspapers have reported that Conte’s government is considering two possible dates for the extension of the country’s emergency status.

Published: 6 January 2021 16:34 CET
Until when will Italy's state of emergency be extended?
Photos: AFP

Italy recorded more than 15,000 new coronavirus infections and 649 deaths on Tuesday January 5, further cementing the government’s fears that a third wave of the coronavirus is on its way despite a promising start to the country’s vaccination campaign.

Hopes in early December that the country could begin to reopen in January have now been dashed, and the extension of restrictions from January 7 have now been confirmed.

READ MORE: How will Italy’s rules coronavirus rules change in January?

What is yet to be decided is how long the country’s state of emergency will go on for, with the current state of alarm due to end on January 31st.

Italy’s state of emergency does not determine the emergency rules and restrictions and it's not the same thing as an emergency decree.

Italy’s stato di emergenza allows Italian officials to bypass much of the bureaucracy that often slows down decision-making.
 
It gives greater powers to both the national government and to regional authorities, and allows the Prime Minister to introduce, change, and revoke rules quickly via emergency decrees.

Several leading Italian newspapers including La Stampa and Il Messaggero are now reporting that the government is considering extending this emergency status until July 31st.

Italy first declared the state of emergency in late January 2020 after the first two cases of Covid-19 were detected in the country, in two Chinese tourists in Rome.

The current end date means the state of emergency will have been in place for one year.

If it is extended until July, the country could end up being under a state of emergency for at least a year and a half.

The other date being suggested in the Italian press is March 31st, a shorter extension which would largely depend on progress made in terms of vaccines and herd immunity.

Italian law states that the duration of a national state of emergency cannot exceed 12 months and can be extended for no more than a further 12 months.

But this does not mean that this particular series of states of emergency can last for two years until January 2022, as the 12-month extension period starts with the first extension, which began on July 31st 2020.

This suggests that Italy’s Covid ‘stato de emergenza’ will end at the very latest on July 31st 2021.

Italy's PM Giuseppe Conte already hinted there'd soon be an extension of the state of emergency at his end-of-year press conference.

For Agostino Miozzo, lead coordinator of Italy's Technical-Scientific Committee for Covid-19 (CTS), which advises the government on health policy, “extending the state of emergency seems inevitable and it will at least be necessary for it to last until late spring”.

What it does do is give greater powers to both the national government and to regional authorities, and it was declared in order to allow the Prime Minister to introduce, change, and revoke rules quickly, via emergency decrees, in response to the ever-changing epidemiological situation.

Since the start of the pandemic Italy has reported 2.1 million infections and 76,329 deaths from Covid-19.

As of January 6 2021, the country had vaccinated 260,000 people in its first week of Covid inoculations.  

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HEALTH

Covid-19 still causing 1,000 deaths a week in Europe, WHO warns

The World Health Organization's European office warned on Tuesday the risk of Covid-19 has not gone away, saying it was still responsible for nearly 1,000 deaths a week in the region. And the real figure may be much higher.

Published: 27 June 2023 13:27 CEST
Covid-19 still causing 1,000 deaths a week in Europe, WHO warns

The global health body on May 5 announced that the Covid-19 pandemic was no longer deemed a “global health emergency.”

“Whilst it may not be a global public health emergency, however, Covid-19 has not gone away,” WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge told reporters.

The WHO’s European region comprises 53 countries, including several in central Asia.

“Close to 1,000 new Covid-19 deaths continue to occur across the region every week, and this is an underestimate due to a drop in countries regularly reporting Covid-19 deaths to WHO,” Kluge added, and urged authorities to ensure vaccination coverage of at least 70 percent for vulnerable groups.

Kluge also said estimates showed that one in 30, or some 36 million people, in the region had experienced so called “long Covid” in the last three years, which “remains a complex condition we still know very little about.”

“Unless we develop comprehensive diagnostics and treatment for long Covid, we will never truly recover from the pandemic,” Kluge said, encouraging more research in the area which he called an under-recognised condition.

Most countries in Europe have dropped all Covid safety restrictions but some face mask rules remain in place in certain countries in places like hospitals.

Although Spain announced this week that face masks will no longer be required in certain healthcare settings, including hospitals and pharmacies, with a couple of exceptions.

Sweden will from July 1st remove some of its remaining Covid recommendations for the public, including advice to stay home and avoid close contact with others if you’re ill or have Covid symptoms.

The health body also urged vigilance in the face of a resurgence of mpox, having recorded 22 new cases across the region in May, and the health impact of heat waves.

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