Italy assesses nationwide declaration in ‘high risk area for COVID-19’ over weekends

The government of the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, considering the possibility of declaring the whole country a high-risk “red” zone, at least on weekends, to counter an increase in the coronavirus pandemic.

“The second wave never stopped. We are witnessing a very strong rebound due to the variants, which leads us to take more and more restrictive measures “, explained the Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, Daily Corriere della Sera.

Speranza did not rule out turning all of Italy into a red zone at least at the weekend, and a tighter curfew. “It is clear that we are going to examine the epidemiological situation, adapting the measures, taking into account the variants”, said.

Italy has a three-tier system that ranks low, medium and high risk regions based on the number of cases. The system involves bar and restaurant closures and strict restrictions on the movement of people that prevent them from leaving their town or village. Several regions have already closed schools and variants are spreading faster among young people.

Among the measures envisaged by the government and a group of medical and scientific experts, there are automatic conversion of regions into red zones if they exceed the threshold of 250 weekly virus cases per 100,000 inhabitants, as well as the closing of shopping centers on weekdays.

The possible measures would go into effect in the middle of this month and last three or four weekends, according to the newspaper. The Republic.

On the other hand, Speranza commented on television Rai3 What expect the declaration of more “red” zones in the Italian regions in the coming weeks, before underlining, in the field of vaccines, that Italy is ready to collaborate with the Russian authorities “to reinforce the production” of the vaccine Sputnik V, once the European Medicines Agency has determined that the vaccine is “safe and secure”.

“I am not interested in the nationality of the scientists who work there”, he said Hope.

Britain’s COVID-19 strain is now dominant in the country and cases are on the rise again from two-month highs.

Italy reported on Saturday about 23,600 new coronavirus infections in the country And by the way 310 deaths per day after passing the three million affected since the start of the pandemic and about to reach the 100,000 dead.

The country has so far administered 5.29 million doses of the vaccine, with 2.7% of the population fully vaccinated.

(With information from Europa Press)

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