(TAN): Italy will reopen its borders for regional and international travel starting June 3, reports said.
The Italian government will also remove the 14-day quarantine requirement for anyone arriving from abroad, as per reports. The lifting of the lockdown comes ahead of the summer tourism season, according to reports. The travel sector reportedly makes up 13% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
The pandemic-related lockdown, which began on March 9, was Europe’s longest and strictest restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19. So far, nearly 227,000 people have been infected of which over 32,000 have died in Italy, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Italy’s coronavirus death count has been the highest after the United States and the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, the new rules only apply to visitors from member countries of the European Union, nations within the Schengen Zone, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, and the microstates and principalities of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican, a report said. Non-European residents could reportedly be allowed nonessential travel into the European Union from June 15, reports said.
The Italian government reportedly said that people would be free to travel anywhere within their own region without having to explain. However, Italy will still restrict travel in those areas that are considered to high-risk zones, reports said.
“People will be able to go wherever they want – to a shop, to the mountains, to a lake or the seaside. We are ready all over Italy to have our tourists back. Rome is unique. Italy is unique. And we will do whatever it takes to share our beauty and art with the rest of the world which had too much to suffer from this pandemic,” Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte was quoted by Arab News as saying.
Let’s open also the non european boundaries!!