‘Afraid this won’t end’: Italy in grips of fresh COVID crisis

The hilly avenues in Ancona, an Italian port city on the Adriatic coast, are eerily devoid of traffic. On an ordinary sunny day, the city centre would be buzzing with people. But with a “red zone” declared on Monday across half of Italy’s 20 regions, there are just a few lone strollers around. On Thursday, Italy is marking a day of remembrance for COVID-19 victims, a year after the world watched in horror as a line of army trucks transported coffins out of the city of Bergamo for cremation. While that was the peak of the Italian tragedy, the pandemic is far from a distant memory. Under the strictest COVID-19 restrictions again, non-essential shops are shut and citizens are barred from meeting friends and family from outside their household bubble. Measures remain severe in the other half of the country too, with the island of Sardinia the only exception.