Italy will extend the quarantine until "at least" until April 12th

Italy will extend quarantine measures nationwide to "at least" in mid-April, the health minister said late Monday.

Some of the measures currently in place to stop the spread of coronavirus, including the closure of most companies and the ban on public meetings, expired on Friday April 3.
But Health Minister Roberto Speranza announced on Monday evening that "all containment measures would be extended at least until Easter" on April 12th.

The government had already confirmed that schools would remain closed after the initial April 3 deadline.

The official announcement of the decree extending the quarantine period is expected on Wednesday or Thursday of this week, the La Repubblica newspaper reported.

Despite evidence that COVID-19 is spreading more slowly across the country, authorities have said that this does not mean that the measures will be lifted and continue to urge people to stay home.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said that any easing of containment measures will be done progressively to ensure that Italy does not cancel the progress made against the disease.

The close of nearly three weeks "has been very tough from an economic point of view," Conte told Spanish newspaper El Pais on Monday.

"It can't last long," he said. “We can study ways (of eliminating restrictions). But it will have to be done gradually. "

The head of the Italian ISS Institute of Public Health Silvio Brusaferro said on Monday to La Repubblica that "we are witnessing a flattening of the curve",

"There are still no signs of a descent, but things are improving."

Italy was the first western nation to impose extensive restrictions to stem the pandemic, which has now caused over 11.500 casualties in the country.

There have been over 101.000 confirmed coronavirus cases in Italy since Monday evening, however the number of infections has increased more slowly again.

Italy is now almost three weeks in a national bloc that has emptied the cities and paralyzed most of the commercial activities.

In the last week, all non-essential activities have been closed and fines for violating quarantine rules have increased to a maximum of € 3.000, with some regions imposing even higher penalties.