Measures taken only a few days ago to slow down the coronavirus epidemic in the north of Italy, in the so-called Red Zone, have been extended last night to the whole of Italy.
Italians have been instructed to stay at home and avoid all non-essential travel in a move that hopes to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Starting Tuesday, the movements of Italy’s 60 million population are severely limited, travel being allowed only for “urgent, verifiable work situations and emergencies or health reasons”. All citizens will have to sign a self-declared document to present to the police and the military to explain their movements. People infected with coronavirus are not allowed to leave their homes for any reason, while anyone that has symptoms related to Covid-19 are advised to stay at home and avoid social contact. The latest decree prohibits “all forms of gatherings in public places or sites open to the public”. The measure also bans most public assemblies and cruise ships from docking at various ports. To avoid work-related travel, whenever possible, teleworking or working from home should be preferred. Conferences and meetings must also be replaced by conference calls or remote calls.
You can find below a translation of the main decisions in the decree and a link to the forms needed to justify travelling in Italy.
—
The directive provides:
1) The immediate convocation, even remotely, of the provincial committees for public order and safety, for taking the necessary coordination measures.
2) Specific indications for controls relating to the limitation of movements of natural persons entering and leaving and within the “enhanced containment” territories:
a) the movements can take place only if motivated by work needs or situations of necessity or for health reasons to be certified by self-declaration, which can also be made sitting immediately by filling in forms provided by the police force. An absolute ban, which does not allow exceptions, is provided for persons subjected to the quarantine measure or who have tested positive for the virus.
b) Checks on compliance with mobility limitations will take place along the communication lines and large infrastructures of the transport system. As regards the motorway network and the main road network, the traffic police will carry out the checks by acquiring the required self-declarations. Similar services will also be carried out along the ordinary roads by the Carabinieri and municipal police forces.
c) With regard to rail transport, the railway police will take care, with the collaboration of the staff of the state railways, health authorities and civil protection, the channeling of passengers entering and leaving the stations in order to allow expeditious checks on the state of health of travelers also through “termoscan” devices. In addition, checks on travelers will be implemented by acquiring self-declarations.
d) At the airports of the areas of the “enhanced containment” territories, departing passengers will be subjected to checks, in addition to possession of the travel document, also the required self-certification. Similar checks will be made on flights arriving in the aforementioned areas. Transit passengers are excluded.
e) For departing Schengen and non-Schengen flights, self-certifications will be requested only for residents or domiciled in restricted territories. On arriving Schengen and non-Schengen flights, passengers must justify the purpose of the trip upon entry.
f) Similar checks will be adopted in Venice for cruise ship passengers who will not be able to disembark to visit the city but will only be able to return to their places of residence or countries of origin.
3) The veracity of the self-declaration can also be verified with subsequent checks.
4) The penalty for those who violate the limitations on travel is that indicated by the dpcm of 8 March 2020 (article 650 of the penal code: non-compliance with an authority measure), unless a more serious hypothesis can be configured.(Editor’s note: arrest up to 3 months and fine of 206€ unless more serious violation) .
In this regard, in order to provide the public with information that is not only correct but as exhaustive as possible, the operating staff will also inform interested parties of the most serious penal consequences of conduct, even if only negligent, which does not comply with the provisions of the dpcm that can lead to configure hypotheses of crime.
Source: Internal Ministry of Italy