ROME (AP) – Police in Italy have imposed new travel restrictions COVID-19 aimed at limiting Christmas gatherings involving family members from afar, as public health officials on Thursday called for a “reduction drastic “of social contacts to prevent new infections during the holidays.
A modified national closure went into effect on Christmas Eve with restrictions and closures similar to the ten-week hard blockade the Italian government applied from March to May, when Italy became the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in Europe.
The goal from December 24 to January. The slowdown is to prevent a resurgence in January after falling waves of coronavirus infections in Italy that killed more people than during the country’s first spring outbreak, according to official calculations. The total number of confirmed cases in Italy exceeded $ 2 million on Thursday, while a further 505 deaths brought the official number of countries in the pandemic to 70,900, most of Europe.
Despite the new restrictions, Italians lined up at pastry shops, fish markets and grocery stores to make last-minute purchases to prepare their Christmas Eve dinners, traditionally multi-garden and multi-generational, which are a staple of the Italian family life.
Italy, which had been under localized restrictions since early November, has experienced an exponential increase in infections since then. But the latest weekly follow-up report from the Ministry of Health, released on Thursday, suggested the downward trend was stagnating.
Warning that hospitals were still at risk of overflowing, the ministry called for “a drastic reduction in physical interaction” between people beyond the immediate family. The government urged Italians to limit Christmas Eve “cenone” dinners to a maximum of two people who do not share the same house.
“It seems trivial and one may ask‘ Why only two people outside the nuclear family? ’” Acknowledged Dr Giovanni Rezza, head of prevention at the Italian ministry of health. “But it is clearly based on probability calculations: the more you increase the size of the concentration, the more risk there is that one of these people, especially if he comes from another place, can become infected and therefore involves a risk to others “.
To reduce that possibility, the government banned residents who began traveling from region to region on Monday. Police were in place Thursday to check that highway Italians obeyed rules that limited travel to their own regions.
Carabinieri Colonel Alessandro Dominici, patrolling in front of the Colosseum in Rome, said the penalties range from 400 euros to 3,000 euros ($ 488-3,700 and can be increased for multiple crimes).
Residents also had to bring certificates issued by the police explaining why they were out, with work, health care and other basic necessities, such as buying groceries.
But Christmas Eve grocery stores turned out to be business, as they often are at this time of year. Buyers in Rome lined up outside the markets to pick up pre-ordered fish, which in much of southern Italy is the backbone of traditional holiday food. The bakeries were doing fast business selling “panettone” dried fruit cakes or lighter yellow “pandoro” cakes dusted with powdered sugar that are basic for Christmas desserts.
“Yesterday there were 900 people in the fish department, all piled on top of each other,” said Daniela Tufoni, who works at a supermarket in Rome.
Tufoni said police officers removed her on Thursday to verify she had a legitimate reason to leave. “It’s good that they do these checks, but if they go to the supermarkets, I can’t tell you what they’ll find,” he said from his car. “No one respects distancing.”
Catholic churches increased the hours of midnight masses by a few hours so that congregants could perform a curfew at 10 p.m. Pope Francis had planned to celebrate his Christmas vigil service from 7.30 pm in front of a small group in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Non-essential shops, restaurants and bars were closed: the Galleria Milan shopping center, with its glass dome, was almost empty, the shops on the Via del Corso shopping street, which was usually in Rome, were closed, and the pigeons were St. Mark’s Square in Venice.
Restaurants and shops are given the chance to reopen for a few days next week, before closing again before New Year’s Eve and the Epiphany holiday on January 6, which marks the end of the period. closing.
The Italian government is particularly concerned about the continued high demand for beds in both intensive care units and regular hospital wards dedicated to patients with COVID-19. At the national level, Italian hospitals remain barely within the benchmark set by the government of not having more than 30% of ICU beds and 40% of non-ICU beds dedicated to patients with viruses.
Officials aim to keep COVID-19 hospitalizations below these thresholds so that patients with other medical needs can receive treatment. Regions that far exceed the benchmarks have been subjected to tougher restrictions to overthrow infections and related hospitalizations.
Italy is scheduled to join other European Union nations to administer the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday, with health workers and residents of nursing homes among the first to receive shots.
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AP visual journalist Luigi Navarro contributed.