Tourists drive Italy’s surge in Covid-19 cases

Country reports 1,210 new cases on Sunday, highest since May 12, only weeks after daily infections plunged to about 200

Passengers wearing protective masks at the Termini railway station during Phase 3 of the emergency for the coronavirus, in Rome, Italy, on August 23, 2020. EPA

With thousands of travellers being tested at Italy’s entry points, the country registered a seventh straight day of increasing new infections on Sunday, mostly driven by returning holidaymakers.

Sicily’s governor ordered all migrant centres on the Italian island to be closed by Monday, as part of a push back by regions alarmed by a steady climb in Covid-19 cases a few weeks before schools are to reopen.

But people coming home from Mediterranean resorts and from the Italian island of Sardinia have accounted for far more of the country's recent coronavirus infections than migrants.

Italy registered 1,210 new cases on Sunday, the highest daily number since May 12 and only weeks after new infections plunged to about 200 a day.

The Lazio region, which includes Rome, and the hard-hit Lombardy led the nation in regional new cases on Sunday.

Thousands of returning travellers were tested at Rome airports and a port north of the capital, and at airports that serve Lombardy’s main city, Milan.

Other cities, such as Turin, have also set up airport test centres.

People arriving from Spain, Malta, Greece and Croatia must be tested within 48 hours of entering Italy, after those nations had sharp rises in infections.

And many recent coronavirus clusters have been traced to people who vacationed on Sardinia.

With many people taking ferries from Sardinia to the Italian mainland, Lazio set up a testing centre at the dock at Civitavecchia, so those driving off the ferries could line up for immediate screenings.

Lazio Governor Nicola Zingaretti appealed to the governor of Sardinia to test tourists before they sailed or flew to the mainland.

Mr Zingaretti said his region would do the same for travellers leaving for Sardinia, but there was no indication Sardinia that would oblige.

Sardinia, which had barely a handful of new daily cases in recent months, registered 81 new infections, compared with 44 a day earlier.

In Sicily, Governor Nello Musumeci’s order took effect on Sunday.

It required all migrants who reach the island by sea to be transferred off to combat the spread of Covid-19, and all centres housing migrants awaiting asylum applications must be shut down by Monday.

Mr Musumeci’s order, effective until September 10, also forbids any boat, including charity vessels, from bringing in migrants.

“I can’t ask our people to keep a distance, wear masks and do other measures while the state amasses people in two rooms,″ he said.

But the national government is in charge of migrant policies and Mr Musumeci acknowledged that his directive might be challenged in court.

On Saturday, migrants accounted for 16 of Sicily’s 48 confirmed new infections.

In past years, nearly all migrants reaching Italy by sea were rescued by humanitarian groups or ships.

But this year, nearly 80 per cent have reached Italian shores on their own, with most setting sail from Tunisia.

Many come ashore on the tiny island of Lampedusa, the migrant centre of which is dangerously overcrowded.

Italy has started to quarantine the latest Lampedusa arrivals aboard chartered ferries off Sicily.

Governor Vincenzo De Luca, who leads the Campania region including Naples, said if daily infections kept surging, he would ask the national government to reinstate travel restrictions between regions.

Some observers said Mr De Luca’s warning was posturing before local elections in September.