Italy’s government is expected to announce the closure of schools, restaurants and shops across most of the country as a new wave of coronavirus infections puts hospitals under strain.
The prime minister, Mario Draghi, will hold a mid-morning cabinet meeting on Friday to decide new restrictions for the eurozone’s third-largest economy, which on Thursday recorded almost 26,000 new Covid-19 cases and 373 deaths.
More than 100,000 people with coronavirus have died in Italy since the pandemic swept the country a year ago, sparking a months-long lockdown and the worst recession since the second world war.
With new, more contagious variants now widespread, Italy’s more populated northern regions such as Lombardy, which includes Milan, will reportedly join several others in being classified as the highest-risk “red zones” from Monday, as will Calabria in the south.
Covid cases in Italy – graph
Lazio, the region that includes Rome, could also join them, although the situation is uncertain.
Draghi’s new national unity government tightened restrictions for red zones earlier this month to include not just the closure of bars, restaurants, shops and high schools but also primary schools. Residents are told to stay home where possible.
Other regions including Tuscany and Liguria are expected to pass into the medium-risk orange zone, with all shops, museums, bars and restaurants closed.
That leaves only Sicily in the lower category of yellow, and Sardinia in the new category of white with hardly any restrictions at all.
Italy began its coronavirus vaccination campaign in late December but, as elsewhere in Europe, it has been dogged by delays in deliveries of the jabs.
Concerns over reported side-effects of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine prompted Italy’s medicines regulator on Thursday to suspend a batch of doses, even while it warned there was no evidence of a link with blood clots.
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