Italy and lockdown

[PianoTuner567]

The numbers in Italy have been going up and up which has made us all concerned, for them and for what it means for us. Especially as there seems to be no explanation for why Italy has been hit so hard.

However, I was amazed to read in The Guardian this morning that Italy has now banned internal travel and ordered the closure of non-essential businesses. I assumed ‘lockdown’ would include all this already.

This makes me think that for all the talk of a lockdown, it hasn’t actually been as strict as we think it has?

The effect of lockdown on the number of new cases should be evident this week, the number of deaths will take longer to fall.

It's been strict but gets stricter every few days. Since the 10th you've only been able to leave home or travel for work, food, medical reasons, exercise, dog walking. Some people have taken the piss but the vast majority have been home.

Now you can only exercise or walk dogs briefly in the immediate vicinity of your home, can only food shop in your local council area (not necessarily the closest shop). Many if not most areas were already applying these rules and closed parks, beach access etc a while ago, were already checking residency at supermarkets etc.

Most companies were already shut/working from home but the manufacturing sector was allowed to stay open so lots of factories have been open (or shut and reopened once they could meet the new rules about distance, masks etc), these will now close unless producing essential stuff. The only people I know personally still going out to work are HCP, couriers, supermarket staff and people who work in paper mills; friends working in designer clothes production have shifted to producing masks.