Rome, Italy
Stir-crazy Italians will be
free to stroll and visit relatives for the first time in nine weeks on Monday as
Europe's hardest-hit country eases back the world's longest nationwide
coronavirus lockdown.
Four
million people -- an estimated 72 percent of them men -- will return to their
construction sites and factories as the economically and emotionally shattered
country tries to get back to work.
Restaurants
that have managed to survive Italy's most disastrous crisis in
generations will reopen for takeaway service.
But bars and
even ice cream parlours will remain shut. The use of public transport will be
discouraged and everyone will have to wear masks in indoor public spaces.
"We are
feeling a mix of joy and fear," 40-year-old Stefano Milano said in Rome.
"There
will be great happiness in being able to go running again carefree, in my son
being allowed to have his little cousin over to blow out his birthday candles,
to see our parents," the father-of-three said.
"But we
are also apprehensive because they are old and my father-in-law has cancer so
is high risk".
Wuhan, the
Chinese city where the virus emerged in December, led the world with an
unprecedented lockdown on January 23 that lasted 76 days.
Weeks later
Italy followed suit, becoming the first Western democracy to shut down
virtually everything in the face of an illness that has now officially killed
28,884 -- the most in Europe -- and some fear thousands more.
The lives of
Italians began closing in around them as it became increasingly apparent that
the first batch of infections in provinces around Milan were spiralling out of
control.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte began
by putting a quarter of the population in the northern industrial heartland on
lockdown on March 8.
The sudden measure
frightened many -- fearful of being locked in together with the gathering
threat -- into fleeing to less affected regions further south.
The danger
of the virus spreading with them and incapacitating the south's less developed
health care system forced Conte to announce a nationwide lockdown on March 9.
"Today
is our moment of responsibility," Conte told the nation. "We cannot
let our guard down."
The official
death toll was then 724.
More waves
of restrictions followed as hundreds began dying each day.
Almost
everything except for pharmacies and grocery stores was shuttered across the
Mediterranean country of 60 million on March 12.
Conte's
final roll of the dice involved closing all non-essential factories on March
22.
Italy's
highest single toll -- 969 -- was reported five days later.
The economic
toll of all those shutdowns has been historic.
Italy's
economy -- the eurozone's third-largest last year -- is expected to shrink more
than in any year since the global depression of the 1930s.
Half of the
workforce is receiving state support and the same number told a top pollster
that they were afraid of becoming unemployed.
And some of
those who are out of a job already say they do not entirely trust in Conte's
ability to safely navigate the nation out of peril.
"I am
worried about the reopening. The authorities seem very undecided about how to
proceed," 37-year-old Davide Napoleoni told AFP.
Conte's
popularity has jumped along with that of most of other world leaders grappling
with the pandemic thanks to a rally around the flag effect.
But a Demos
poll conducted at the end of April found some of Conte's lustre fading.
Confidence
in his government has slipped by eight percentage points to a still-strong 63
percent since March.
Italy's
staggered reopening is complicated by a highly decentralised system that allows
the country's 20 regions to layer on their own rules.
Venice's
Veneto and the southern Calabria regions have thus been serving food and drink
at bars and restaurants with outdoor seating since last week.
The area
around Genoa is thinking of allowing small groups of people to go sailing and
reopening its beaches.
Neighbouring
Emilia-Romagna is keeping them closed -- even to those who live by the sea.
All
this uncertainty appears to be weighing on the nation's psyche.
A poll by
the Piepoli Institute showed 62 percent of Italians think they will need
psychological support with coming to grips with the post-lockdown world.
"The
night of the virus continues," sociologist Ilvo Diamanti wrote in La
Repubblica daily.
"And
you can hardly see the light on the horizon. If anything, we're getting used to
moving in the dark." - AFP
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