“To not worry [about new cases from abroad] would be unconscionable,” Health Minister Roberto Speranza told Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, which wrote: “France, Spain and the Balkans... Italy is surrounded by contagions.”
Fear over new outbreaks imported by returning holidaymakers has been fuelled by the widely reported case of 30 young Italians from the Veneto region who tested positive after returning from a trip to Croatia at the start of August.
Meanwhile in Tuscany, a dozen young people who returned from a holiday on the Greek island of Corfu have since tested positive, as has the mother of one of the travellers.
As well as banning non-essential travel from most countries outside Europe, Italy is closed to residents of Bosnia, Serbia, North Macedonia and Montenegro, while people arriving from Romania and Bulgaria are required to spend 14 days in quarantine.
Though the first European country to be hit hard by the virus back in February, Italy has since reaped the rewards of a strict nationwide lockdown and social distancing policy.
On Sunday, it reported just two deaths from the virus.
Case numbers are rising, however, with 463 new infections reported over a 24-hour period.
Veneto Governor Luca Zaia said new infections in his region were found in residents who had recently returned home from Spain, Peru, Malta, Croatia and Greece.
“Vacations are a risk,” he said in his daily briefing.
“Everyone must decide where they want to go on vacation, but it’s also true that for a couple of weeks now, we’re seeing a concentration of patients who were infected on vacation.”
Meanwhile in the southern region of Campania, Rodolfo Punzi, director of the infectious diseases department at Naples’ Cotugno hospital, echoed Zaia’s concerns.
“We have to be ready: over the next two weeks, the number of contagions on their return [from abroad] will increase,” he told Italian daily La Stampa.
Italy’s official death toll from coronavirus stands at 35,209, while more than 251,000 confirmed cases have been recorded in the country.
