Posted on 04/19/2020 12:21:11 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Rome (AFP) – Italians debated Sunday their first cautious steps out of a coronavirus lockdown that has left an estimated half of the working population seeking government support.
The Mediterranean country has been filled with rumours and speculation about when people will finally be allowed to walk the streets freely for the first time since early March.
The balmy weather is not helping government efforts to keep everyone inside in the face of a disease that has officially killed 23,227 in Italy — second only to the United States.
The number of daily fines for illegal outdoor activity is rising and police are setting up barricades along roads leading to the beaches on the western outskirts of Rome.
The growing sense that weeks of confinement were ending forced an unnamed source in Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s office to tell media that “nothing will change”.
But some officials seem to think that extending the strictest lockdown measures beyond their May 3 deadline might simply not work.
The daily death rate has fallen to half of what it was at the peak of the crisis and people — feeling less frightened but more stir crazy — may simply start going out.
“We must give citizens greater freedom of movement,” Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri said on Saturday.
Conte gave little of the game away in one of his characteristic late-night Facebook posts on Saturday.
He said some activities will be allowed to resume “according to a well-structured programme that balances the need to protect people’s health with the need to resume production”.
Conte is expected to hear on Monday the conclusions of a re-opening taskforce headed by former Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
“The balmy weather is not helping government efforts to keep everyone inside in the face of a disease that has officially killed 23,227 in Italy — second only to the United States.”
They leave off China with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people dead from COVID-19.
Let’s face it... You can only hide underneath your bed from the boogeyman for so long... Eventually you need to accept that hiding forever isn’t an option... In China, Italy, or anywhere else...
Getting back to work and accepting that deaths will happen needs to be ingrained into a population that has been fed nothing but fear an loathing from politicians and ‘scientist’ since the first week of March...
People are going to need to accept that when they exit their home they need to live with one more fear in the multitude of fears that can grip you and turn you into an agoraphobic loser. Don’t be an agoraphobic loser.
Let’s all suck it up and go to work... If teenagers at McDonald’s can risk their lives to serve you a burger, shouldn’t you risk your life to provide for your family and make sure are economies don’t turn into shite?
I’m all for it and can start Monday if anyone willing to give me a job that pays even half of what I was making. My last job isn’t coming back for a very very long time.
Will be to the politician that stands in the way of Italians getting back to their markets!
Matteo Salvini for Prime Minister!
40% of Italy’s GDP is based on tourism... w/o tourism their economy will get worse and they will need a bailout from the EU or ChiComs.... the mafia is already taking over in southern parts of the country
And isn’t earning a paycheck an essential activity?
That’s what I was thinking. Countries like Italy that are so dependent on tourism are really going to struggle badly even when the restrictions are lifted.
One of things I see is travel prices will be dirt cheap, and people will take advantage.
Where do you live?
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