“The phenomenon is partly linked to vacationers,” Franco Locatelli, president of Italy’s Higher Health Council and a member of the government’s technical scientific committee (CTS), told Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera.
“Depending on the region, 25 to 40 per cent of cases were imported by fellow citizens who had returned from travel abroad.”
Locatelli said that while cases had previously been concentrated in Italy’s northern regions, they are “now widespread throughout the country with hundreds of outbreaks”.
He added that cases imported by refugees are “minimal”.
“No more than 3 to 5 per cent are positive, and some become infected in reception centres where it is more difficult to maintain adequate health measures,” he explained.
Locatelli stressed that restarting the nation’s tourism industry this summer had been necessary in order not to further damage the economy and to prevent Italians from holidaying abroad.
Though many Italians opted to travel within their own country this year – or said they weren’t going on holiday at all – many local media reports have suggested young Italian travellers returning from party hotspots may be partly to blame for the sudden rise in cases.
The spike in cases prompted fears among health authorities that months of hard-won progress could be lost in just days.
The Italian government last week introduced mandatory testing for all travellers returning to Italy from Spain, Greece, Croatia, and Malta, in the hope of stemming new outbreaks.
Italy’s health minister on Sunday night ordered the closure of all nightclubs and made the wearing of face masks in open spaces mandatory between 6:00 pm and 6:00 am.
The government is closely monitoring infection rates with less than a month to go before schools are due to reopen.
Locatelli said schools must be allowed to reopen as planned on September 14 and that keeping them shut beyond that was “out of the question”.
Schools across the nation have been closed since March.
