COVID-19: Govt ready to take further action if needed - Conte

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 22 - Premier Giuseppe Conte told the Lower House on Thursday that his government was ready to take further action if necessary amid a sharp rise in COVID-19 contagion in Italy.
    "We will be ready to intervene again if necessary," the premier said as he presented a package of new restrictions approved at the weekend to combat contagion. Italy registered over 15,000 new cases on Wednesday.
    "We are still behind the pandemic and the constant rise in contagions forces us to keep attention extremely high," Conte said.
    "This time, however, we are stronger thanks to the experience of the spring.
    "The situation is very different from that of March (when Italy went into lockdown) although this situation has turned out to be highly critical." He said he was not in favour of closing down Italy's schools again.
    The nation's schools closed during the first lockdown and did not reopen until the start of the new academic year in September.
    "School activities will continue with pupils physically present," Conte said.
    "We cannot allow one of the country's cornerstones to suffer more compromises, more sacrifices".
    Conte noted how some regions were taking more restrictive measures than those set by the central government, with Lombardy, Lazio and Campania imposing curfews as part of the effort to stop the spread of the disease.
    The package Conte was presenting was a decree approved by his executive on Sunday.
    In a bid to prevent people contracting the disease while out socializing, local authorities have the power to close squares and other areas where groups gather at night at 21:00.
    Restaurants and pubs are not able to serve people at the bar after 18:00.
    They had already been forced to close at midnight in the previous decree.
    High schools are not be allowed to open before 9:00 in a bid to ease pressure on public-transport services during the morning rush hour and prevent overcrowding.
    Local festivals and trade fairs have been banned but events of a national scale have not. (ANSA).