Today 24 December the Christmas lockdown. Italy, from north to south, will be the red zone until Sunday 27. The controls for compliance with the anti-Covid rules will already be intensified as of today; only essential businesses such as supermarkets and pharmacies remain open.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister Giuseppe Contand reassures: "The Christmas squeeze could allow us to face January by dosing the measures only where necessary between the yellow, orange and red areas". Meanwhile, according to data from the Ministry of Health, today they have been registered 18.040 new positive cases (14.522 yesterday) while new deaths are 505 (yesterday 553). The discharged healed are 22.718 (yesterday 20.494); overall the positive cases are 593.632, 5.184 fewer than yesterday.
The Christmas lockdown is coming
"The Covid-19 epidemic in Italy is in a decreasing but slowed down phase". Thus the president of the Higher Institute of Health, Silvio Brusaferro who commented on the data of the regional monitoring of the control room. “The Rt index - underlined Brusaferro - is below 1 in all regions except Molise and Veneto". According to the monitoring data, the Veneto it has a point-to-point transmissibility index Rt at 1,11 and Molise at 1,02. At the national level, the phase is one of “instability and transition. After a few weeks in which there has been a downward trend in the Rt index, now we are witnessing a sort of stabilization trend ".
This was highlighted by the Director General of Prevention of Ministry of Health, Gianni Rezza. “After a decrease in the Rt index, we are now aiming for stabilization. Some regions such as Lazio and Lombardy have an unstable Rt and Veneto registers a number of new cases which again seems to be high. We need to reduce the incidence of cases and the impact on the National Health Service. In fact - Rezza pointed out - the data on intensive care is still above the critical threshold ".
Ok for lunches and dinners but with few people
At the dinners and lunches of these Christmas holidays “limiting the number of people is important. This is not an imposition but a call to common sense. The more the size of the aggregations increases during the party lunches and dinners, the more the risk increases ”Rezza underlined. "It's important - the expert reiterated - continue to maintain prudent behavior, especially on these holidays. Furthermore, in the most affected areas, the opportunity for more restrictive measures can be considered ”.
