COVID-19 lockdowns in Italy

COVID-19 lockdown in Italy
Part of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy
Date9 March 2020 (2020-03-09) – 18 May 2020 (2020-05-18)[a]
(2 months, 1 week and 2 days)
Location
Italy
San Marino
Vatican City
Caused byCOVID-19 pandemic in Italy
Goalscontaining the outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy
Methods
  • ban of non-essential travel
  • limitation of free movement, except in cases of necessity
  • ban of public events
  • closure of commercial and retail businesses, except essential goods sellers and banks
  • suspension of teaching in schools and universities
  • under-surveillance quarantine of infected persons
  • shutdown of all non-essential businesses and industries (23 March–3 May)
Resulted inabout 60 million people quarantined (Italian population)

On 9 March 2020, the government of Italy under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte imposed a national lockdown or quarantine, restricting the movement of the population except for necessity, work, and health circumstances, in response to the growing pandemic of COVID-19 in the country. Additional lockdown restrictions mandated the temporary closure of non-essential shops and businesses. This followed a restriction announced on the previous day which affected sixteen million people in the whole region of Lombardy and in fourteen largely-neighbouring provinces in Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Piedmont and Marche, and prior to that a smaller-scale lockdown of ten municipalities in the province of Lodi and one in the province of Padua that had begun in late February.

The lockdown measures, despite being widely approved by the public opinion,[1] were also described as the largest suppression of constitutional rights in the history of the republic.[2] Nevertheless, Article 16 of the Constitution states that travel restrictions may be established by law for reasons of health or security.[3]

Italy was the first country to enact a COVID-19 lockdown nationwide;[4] many countries would introduce similar measures in subsequent months the COVID-19 pandemic spread globally.


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  1. ^ De Feo, Gianluca (20 March 2020). "Sondaggio Demos: gradimento per Conte alle stelle". YouTrend (in Italian). Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  2. ^ "Un uomo solo è al comando dell'Italia, e nessuno ha niente da ridire". Linkiesta (in Italian). 24 March 2020. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
  3. ^ "The Italian Constitution". The official website of the Presidency of the Italian Republic.
  4. ^ "A year on from Europe's first lockdown, Italy mulls new restrictions". euronews. 9 March 2021. Retrieved 7 October 2021.