The Italian government has agreed to place strict limits on travel over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday period to prevent a new spike of coronavirus infections.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s cabinet agreed on the measures in a meeting that ran into the early hours of Thursday.
Specifically, the cabinet decided to ban travel between Italian regions from Dec. 21 to Jan. 6. Exceptions are possible for work, for health reasons and in other emergencies.
Rules are to be tightened further on Dec. 25 and 26 and Jan. 1, when people are to be banned from leaving their towns of residence.
Again, there are exceptions for work or emergency situations.
The government was expected to adopt a separate decree later on Thursday with more anti-virus rules.
According to drafts, the decree is to confirm a curfew between 10 pm and 5 am (2100 and 0400 GMT), extended to 7 am on New Year’s Day.
It is also to keep ski slopes closed until Jan. 7 and ban cruise ship holidays until the same date, as well as foreseeing a partial reopening of high schools, also from Jan. 7.
The contents of the decree were still liable to change following talks between the government and regional leaders, who are pushing for looser restrictions to minimize the damage to the economy.
In any case, the government was expected to confirm a three-tier system of virus restrictions, which divides regions into red, orange or yellow zones on the basis of various pandemic risk indicators.
At the moment, Tuscany, Valle d’Aosta, South Tyrol, Abruzzo and Campania are marked as high-risk red zones where people need to fill in a form to leave their homes and most shops are closed.
Italy has been one of the countries worst affected by the pandemic, but a second wave of infections that surged dramatically from early October onwards has begun to ebb in recent days.
On Wednesday, the country registered 20,709 new infections, down from a peak of nearly 41,000 on Nov. 13.
Overall, Italy has recorded more than 1.6 million infections and around 57,000 deaths.
