The northern Italian regions of Lombardy, Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta, and Calabria in the country’s “toe”, went into a “soft lockdown” on Friday as part of the government’s three-tiered system to combat the spread of the virus.

Under the new system, the four regions were declared high-risk “red zones” and have shuttered all non-essential businesses, in measures affecting 16 million residents.

A further two southern regions, Puglia and Sicily, are under less stringent “orange zone’’ measures.

The rest of the country’s 20 regions are classed as low-risk “yellow zones’’, but must abide to nationwide restrictions, including a 10:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew, remote learning for high schools, reduced public transport capacity and the closure of shopping centres at weekends.

Under a previous package of nationwide restrictions, bars and restaurants throughout Italy must stop serving customers at 6:00 pm and the nation’s museums, cinemas, theatres, swimming pools and gyms have been closed.

People in the highest-risk red and orange zones are told to stay within their comune, or municipality, and are only allowed to leave for work, study, health or other essential reasons, as Italy brings in the strictest measures since its two-month spring lockdown was eased.

In addition to not being allowed to travel from one municipality to another, people in red zones are not allowed to move around within their own area, unless for essential reasons, using either public or private transport.

While some businesses are allowed to remain open in the red and orange zones, including hairdressers, bookshops, and bars (for takeout service only), many of those said it was not worth doing so.

As with the rest of the nation, high schools must move to remote learning, but in the red zones, this rule also applies to students in their second and third year of middle school.

People across Italy have voiced anger and concern after Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the classifications on Wednesday night.

Many questioned how regions with some of the lowest case numbers – such as Calabria and Valle d’Aosta – had ended up as red zones, while regions with many times more, including Campania, Lazio and Veneto were classed as only moderate-risk.

Officials in Lombardy – by far the worst-hit area since the start of the pandemic – said the new rules were “a slap in the face”, while the mayor of Naples in hard-hit Campania said it should not have been declared a yellow zone and stricter measures were needed.

Authorities in Calabria said they would contest the government’s decision to declare it a red zone.

The regional classification however isn’t based on case numbers alone, but on a complex system of 21 criteria established by Italy’s Higher Health Institute (ISS).

The criteria include hospital capacity and the region’s ability to trace the contagion.

 Italy on Sunday recorded 32,616 new cases of coronavirus nationwide.

 There were 331 deaths in the past 24 hours, 94 less than Saturday.