Italy closes all bars, restaurants, cafes and beauty salons.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered nearly all businesses across the country to close on Wednesday as coronavirus infections and deaths continue to rise, two days after he announced travel restrictions.
247 According to international agencies, pharmacies, supermarkets, banks, and public transportation will be allowed to operate, but any other non-essential commercial establishment—restaurants, bars, most shops, cafes, beauty salons—must close to limit the spread of the virus.
Italy has already imposed controls unlike anything seen in a modern democracy, banning public gatherings and telling a nation of 60 million people to halt travel except for work or emergencies.
But in Italy and across Europe, the epidemic has spread at such a speed that countries across the continent are struggling to develop containment plans.
The Italian prime minister did not say when the new order would take effect, but many businesses had already closed, based on their own judgments or in anticipation of a government decree.
"If the numbers continue to rise, which is not unlikely," Conte said, it would mean not that new measures are needed, but that Italians are exceeding the limits already imposed. "We must be lucid, measured, rigorous, and responsible."