Italy: Lombardy was confined by mistake during …

An unusual event has occurred in Italy. The region of LombardyEpicenter of the pandemic in Europe since its inception, it has been contained and mistakenly classified as a “red zone” for a week due to incorrect regional statistics on coronavirus infections. The situation was corrected by the government on Saturday from a decree.

This affair has attracted much criticism from central and regional government because of the economic repercussions it has had in the region, the country’s economic engine, with its capital in Milan.

The Italian Minister of Health, Roberto Speranza, signed an ordinance in which Lombardy goes from the red zone, the most serious scenario with the greatest limitations, to orange, which allows for example the reopening of shops and the exit of people in the streets of its municipality .

Lombardy, the most prosperous region and home to ten million people, was one of three confined on January 17 for their contagion data, along with the Autonomous Province of Bolzano (north) and the island of Sicily (south) .

However, regional authorities were quick to say they would challenge the lockdown as daily data on infections and mortality was much lower than at other times.

After a crossing of accusations between administrations, the ministry published a report on Friday in which it was detailed that the regional government had rectified the count of cases previously provided and that this had changed its situation.

With this change in classification, Lombardy joins the thirteen regions in orange level, on alert, out of twenty in total. These are Friuli-Veneto-Julia, Liguria, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Piedmont, Aosta Valley (north), Abruzzo, Lazio, Umbria, Marche (center), Calabria, Sardinia and Puglia.

Currently, the regions of Italy are divided into three types of zones depending on the severity of the local epidemiological situation (yellow, orange and red), which is assessed weekly by a scientific committee.

In red, the regions of Bolzano and Sicily are confined, while at the softest level are Trento (north), Tuscany (north), Molise, Campania and Basilicata (south).

Minister Speranza praised the fact that the transmission index Rt is again below 1 in the national average, which in his opinion shows that the Christmas measures “worked” and that the same methods should be persevered.

Italy records around 14,000 infections a day, far less than in the worst times of November. In total, 2,441,854 people have been infected and 84,674 have lost their lives since the outbreak of the health emergency in mid-February 2020.