Italy closes museums and shopping centers on weekends

The Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, this Monday in the Chamber of Deputies, in Rome.REMO CASILLI / Reuters

The Italian oasis in this second wave of infections officially ended this Monday morning in the Chamber of Deputies.

The Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, who is already noticing the effects of the debatable management of this second part of the pandemic, decided to go through Parliament to report on the situation and the new measures that will be taken in the face of the very strong increase in cases.

"In our country the situation is getting worse," he said, pointing to the critical moment that some areas of Italian hospitals are experiencing.

For this reason, Conte announced a new management model based on the risk of each region.

The new decree will not be uniform on the national basis.

"If we proposed a uniform system we would get a doubly negative result," he said.

The Government will establish three risk phases in which the regions will enter based on technical criteria on infections and their tracking and containment capacity.

The most obvious candidates for the highest level are Lombardy, Lazio, Campania or Piedmont.

It will be the Ministry of Health, led by Roberto Speranza, who decides, and it will imply different restrictions.

In addition, the inhabitants of the regions with greater risk will not be able to move to other communities with less aggressive data on infections.

The extension of the curfew to nine at night, as the Italian media pointed out before Conte appeared, could apply only to those regions located in the highest range of infections.

The prime minister also pointed out that at the national level all shopping centers will be closed during weekends, excluding the part of these facilities that contains essential services such as pharmacies, supermarkets or tobacconists.

In addition, all exhibitions and museums in the country will be closed and the capacity of public transport will be reduced to 50% to avoid crazy situations such as those that have been experienced in recent weeks on buses and subways in large cities.

Until now, the higher schools taught a significant part of their classes electronically, but this week they are completely switching to distance education.

The Government wants to protect the youngest, most in need of face-to-face teaching and contact with other students.

Extracurricular activities and sports centers were already closed since the last decree was signed last week.

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