Italy was the first country in Europe to implement lockdown, so what can we learn from the country’s attempt to impose restrictions to stamp out Covid-19? And what does Italy’s experience of finding a path out of lockdown teach Britain as it emerges out of lockdown itself?
Ten towns in the province of Lodi, Lombardy, and one town in Veneto were designated areas or ‘red zones’ on 23 February 2020: two days after the first Covid-19 death and three days after the identification of the first autochthonous case of Covid-19 (i.e. a case which could not be linked to contact with outsiders). By the time Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte announced the complete national lockdown – the ‘orange zone’ – on the 11 of March, there were 12,482 cases and 827 deaths. In a progressively attenuated form lockdown continues to this day.
The lack of pandemic preparedness against a backdrop of media-fuelled hysteria due to the initial explosive nature of the European pandemic reflected the decisions taken.
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