ROME (AP) — Police in Italy are enforcing new COVID-19 travel restrictions aimed at limiting far-flung families from gathering over Christmas.
Public health officials appealed for people to use common sense to prevent new infections over the holidays as a modified nationwide lockdown took effect Thursday.
The aim of the new Dec. 24-Jan. 6 slowdown is to limit a January resurgence. It requires restrictions and closures similar to the 10 weeks of hard lockdown the Italian government imposed from March to May.
Italians lined up at bakeries, fish markets, and grocery stores even as government officials begged them to limit their traditional Christmas Eve dinners to no more than two people outside their nuclear families.