Italy's family doctors on Tuesday
called for a COVID 'red zone' to be declared in the whole of the
country amid the second wave of the pandemic.
"I would decide a red zone in the whole of Italy," said
Silvestro Scotti, president of the Italian federation of doctors
of general medicine (FIMMG).
"It seems absurd to me that (the current three-tiered system)
was decided when the North had such large contagion rates," he
said.
Speaking to Sky TG24, he called the three-colour system "a joke
of a jigsaw puzzle".
The government last week introduced the three-tiered colour
system to combat the second wave of COVID.
This saw Calabria, Lombardy, Piedmont and Val d'Aosta go into a
soft lockdown after being classed as high-contagion-risk red
zones.
The autonomous province of Bolzano joined them on Monday, when
five regions - Abruzzo, Umbria, Basilicata, Liguria and Tuscany
- were bumped up from yellow to orange zones, joining Puglia and
Sicily.
These areas have slightly less stringent restrictions as they
have been classed as medium-high risk while the rest of the
country is moderate risk - yellow.
Under the restrictions, which apply until, December 3,
non-essential shops and markets are closed in red zones and
travel outside one's home town is banned, except for work or
health reasons.
On Sunday Filippo Anelli, the president of the Italian
federation of medical guilds (FNOMCEO), called for Italy to be
put into a "total lockdown throughout the country".
In a Facebook post, Anelli said the national health system
cannot cope with the rising number of COVID-19 cases and warned
Italy could suffer 10,000 more deaths than the current rate in a
month.
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