Italy’s Conte Spars With Regions Over Who Will Impose Lockdown

(Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte may approve further restrictions to curb the coronavirus outbreak that would stop short of a nationwide lockdown, according to local media.

Conte is due to address parliament on Monday ahead of an evening cabinet meeting that could stop travel between regions and close shopping malls at weekends, Corriere della Sera and La Stampa wrote on Sunday. Stricter localized curbs -- including mini-lockdowns for the worst hit cities such as Milan and Naples -- would be left to regional authorities.

Some governors are resisting the plan. Attilio Fontana, chief of Milan’s Lombardy region and a close ally of opposition leader Matteo Salvini, said that if a lockdown is necessary it should be applied to the country as a whole, according to newswire Ansa.

New cases declined for the first time in six days on Sunday, with 29,907 new infections compared to a record 31,758 on Saturday. Testing was slower at the weekend as usual, and there were 16 positive results for every 100 tests.

“More drastic measures are needed to be able to flatten the epidemic curve and make sure that all Italians are treated,” the head of the Italian doctors’ association, Filippo Anelli, told Ansa. He stopped short of calling for a full lockdown.

Italy, the original epicenter of the pandemic in Europe and the first Western country to impose a lockdown first time around, is so far resisting sweeping new restrictions that other European countries are adopting. The U.K., Austria, Greece, Portugal and Belgium all imposed new curbs this weekend, while measures in Germany and Belgium kick in on Monday.

Hospitals risk collapsing in three weeks if the outbreak doesn’t slow down, according to a report by La Repubblica. Other potential measures under consideration include closing restaurants and bars altogether from their current 6 p.m. curfew, and making online classes compulsory from eighth grade. Conte said at an online forum Saturday that keeping schools open will be a challenge.

Italy has also already set an 11 p.m. curfew and shut down gyms, swimming pools and entertainment venues. The country has had a total of 709,335 coronavirus cases since February.

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