- Italy is on coronavirus lockdown. As of Wednesday, 35,713 people were infected and 2,978 had died in Italy.
- Anyone who leaves their house in Italy is required to carry a self-certification form explaining why they’re outside.
- The form provides several options for leaving the house, including work, health reasons, or other necessities, like buying food.
- If people don’t have the form to show police, they can be fined.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
People in Italy cannot leave the house without a form explaining exactly why they’re going outside.
Since March 10, the nation of 60 million has been on lockdown in an attempt to control the coronavirus outbreak there, currently the worst in the world.
As of Wednesday, 35,713 people were infected and 2,978 had died in Italy. On Wednesday alone, 475 people died from the coronavirus in Italy – the highest one-day death toll of any nation.
People can go outside only if there’s an urgent reason. The self-certification form’s options for leaving the house include work, health reasons, or “necessity” – which covers things like buying food.
According to TheLocal.it, an English-language site for Italian news, anyone who breaks the quarantine rules can be charged, fined, and face up to three months in prison.
Anyone caught giving a false reason could be charged as well.
On March 16 NPR reporter Sylvia Poggioli wrote about how Rome had changed since the coronavirus.
"Suddenly, the priests have disappeared and cops are everywhere - roaming streets, making random checks that people are carrying their 'self-certification' form," she wrote.
Ross Elwood, an EU public affairs consultant living in Pisa, told Insider that he kept the form on him whenever he left the house, although police have not yet asked for it. Here is his, with some personal information blurred out.
"I keep it with me when I go out. There are reports in the papers everyday about how many have been stopped. The police can ask you for this form and if you don't have the correct reason to be outside you can be fined," he said.
He also said there had been a "huge amount of confusion" when the form was announced, because the reasons for leaving the house, as well as the repercussions if you didn't have it, were vague.
According to ITV, after initial confusion around the restrictions, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's office released a statement to clarify concerns.
It said people could leave their homes for "normal necessities," as well as work or health reasons.
The form can be printed from the government's website.
According to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, if you don't have a printer, you need to write it by hand. You cannot use a photograph or pdf, since police need to countersign it.
- Read more:
- How Italy spiraled from a perfectly healthy country to near collapse in 24 days as the coronavirus took hold
- Italians share what they wish they'd done 10 days ago to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, from staying inside to listening to their mom's advice
- Italy is in a nationwide lockdown because of the coronavirus. Here are the rules its 60 million citizens now have to follow.
- At an Amazon facility in Italy, 30% of workers have reportedly stopped showing up due to fears of the coronavirus