Italy: COVID ‘Green Pass’ Needed For Museums, Indoor Dining

ROME (AP) — Pompeii’s archaeological park is offering free swab tests, the Vatican Museums posted refund instructions and tourists whipped out smart phones to show QR codes along with admission tickets Friday as a new COVID-19 certification rule took effect in Italy as part of the government’s plan to rein in a summer surge in infections.

A so-called “Green Pass” is now required to enter archaeological sites, gyms, theaters, indoor pools and the indoor sections of restaurants, bars and cafes. To obtain a certificate, individuals must show they have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine approved for use in the European Union, recovered from COVID-19 in the past six months or have negative lab results from a test done within the previous 48 hours.

The government announced the rule on July 22. Some 50 million of Italy’s 60 million residents had downloaded the certification by late July.

Vaccine certificates issued by the United States, Canada, Japan and Israel will be accepted for tourists arriving from those countries.

Along the sidewalk flanking Vatican City’s walls, visitors to the Vatican Museums - one of the world’s most popular attractions - got ready to show their cellphones with their QR certificates to staffers at the entrance. The line moved briskly.

Visitors from France found the new Italian system familiar. Their country has already introduced entrance requirements even tougher than Italy’s since they also apply to outdoor dining.

“It is good for everybody’s safety. It is positive for the economy, too,″ French tourist Alexine Prentignac said.

While many find it convenient to flash their Green Pass on a phone, paper certification is acceptable in Italy. The Vatican Museums website cautioned visitors to have an identity document handy so staff could “verify actual ownership” of the Green Pass. For anyone unwilling or unable to comply, the website offered instructions on how to request a ticket refund.

At Pompeii, one of Italy’s most-visited tourist sites, officials teamed up with the city of Naples to offer coronavirus tests during the opening hours of the sprawling park featuring the ancient Roman city’s ruins. For now, the tests are being given on an experimental basis, free-of-charge.

During a global emergency like the pandemic, “it’s the task of those who manage a culture site to reconcile as best as possible the needs of health and public safety with our mission to be an inclusive place,″ accessible to all, said Pompeii’s director general, Gabriel Zuchtriege.

Business owners quickly wove the change into their customer routines. Fabrizio De Falco, the owner of a cafe near St. Peter’s Basilica with both an outdoor terrace and indoor tables, also regarded it a necessary adjustment during the pandemic.

“It is one more duty. It is an additional workload, but it is worth it if it will get us out from this situation,″ said De Falco.

The Green Pass rule applies to those 12 or older, since children under that age aren’t eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in Italy.

Much of leisure life in Italy during warm months is spent outdoors. Gyms, cinemas and theaters frequently close in August since staff and clients opt for vacations during the month. With air-conditioning still a relatively new phenomenon for many businesses, dining outdoors at trattorias and cafes is a summertime tradition in much of the nation.

Right-wing leader Matteo Salvini, whose League party is part of Italy’s coalition government, had voiced worry that any Green Pass requirements for long-distance travel would discourage domestic and international tourism. The tourist industry accounts for 13% of Italy’s GDP.

On Thursday evening, Premier Mario Draghi’s Cabinet approved a new rule making such certification obligatory starting on Sept. 1 for those taking flights, high-speed or inter-regional trains or ships sailing between regions. An exception was made for ferries which frequently ply the narrow strait between Sicily and Calabria, a route taken by many commuters and students.

By FRANCES D'EMILIO

Italy Opens Again Amid Hopes For Real Economic Relaunch

MILAN (AP) — Lunch-time diners filled tables on Milan’s landmark Piazza Duomo even on a cloudy, windswept Monday, proof of the pent-up demand for eating out as Italy begins its second, and many hope last, reopening of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After six months of rotating on-again, off-again closures, restaurants, bars, museums and cinemas opened to the public in most of the country under a gradual reopening plan that is seen as too cautious for some, too hasty for others.

The nation’s weary virologists and health care workers fear that even the tentative reopening laid out by Premier Mario Draghi’s government will invite a free-or-all, signs of which were seen over the weekend with parks and squares filling up in cities from Rome to Turin, Milan to Naples.

“It is illusory to think that you give a sign of opening, and you don’t see people around. Perfection doesn’t exist,” Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said Monday. “You also have to be a little tolerant, and also a little careful.”

For restaurant owners struggling to survive, the return of outdoor dining is too little, too late, and the continued 10 p.m. curfew puts a damper on theater re-openings and sends a bad public relations message for international tourism heading into the second pandemic summer.

Pizzeria Pino was granted rare permission by Milan officials to set up tables along the porticoes lining Piazza Duomo, some compensation for the lost indoor seating, as it served seated customers for the first time since February. The permit will last through the summer.

“We can only be happy,” waiter Antonio Carullo said. “Because we have many friends who have restaurants who don’t have a lot of space outside, or none at all, and they are still at home, out of work.”

The government’s vision is that the renewed economic activity of the gradual reopening — continuing with outdoor pools next month, gyms after that and larger events and fairs from mid-June — will be turbocharged by 200 billion euros ($241 billion) in EU and Italian recovery funds that was outlined in parliament on Monday.

”I am sure that honesty, intelligence and the taste for the future will prevail over corruption, stupidity and vested interests,” Draghi told lawmakers in Rome.

Under pressure from right-wing partners, the government moved the openings a week earlier than initially planned, allowing free travel for the first time in months among 15 of Italy’s 21 regions and autonomous provinces under the lowest levels of coronavirus restrictions. The number of people who can visit friends and family at any one time was doubled from two to four. Restaurants and bars can seat people for open-air dining. Contact sports resumed outdoors.

In Rome’s Campo dei Fiori, restaurant owners set up tables outside and swept the cobblestones to welcome customers for sit-down service for the first time since mid-March. Venice remained empty of its usual throngs of tourists, but café’ owners wiped tables and chairs and placed them outside hoping for the local customers.

“It’s a bit of a rebirth,” said café owner Stefano Baldan in Campo Santa Margherita

The reopenings come even as Italy’s intensive care wards remain above the 30% threshold for alarm. Italy’s vaccine campaign is also still well shy of its 500,000-shots-a-day goal and is only now moving to protect people in the 70-79 age bracket. The World Health Organization says people over 65 have accounted for the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths in Europe.

That has caused concern among virologists who note that the virus has been adept at transforming itself with deadly variants, and that in Italy the curve has only recently come under control, and could easily spike back up.

The Italian island of Sardinia — the only region that was entirely free of restrictions for a period this winter — has become a cautionary tale. It was plunged into the red zone in mid-April after the all-clear signal resulted in a surge of new infections.

Dr. Massimo Puoti, chief of infectious diseases at Milan’s Niguarda hospitals, said he believes Italy’s monitoring system would allow enough warning if the virus delivered another blow. Right now, he said the focus needs to remain on vaccinations, not so much to contain contagions, but to keep pressure off hospitals.

“That will allow us to return to our usual activity, because we have many patients who don’t have COVID in need of treatment,″ Dr. Puoti said, treatments that cannot be scheduled as long as the intensive care wards are under pressure. “Even if a cancer patient can wait for treatment, they are not waiting with serenity.”

Despite the difficulties, the decision to open was understandable, Dr. Puoti said.

“After all it’s hard to restrain people, and also to cope with a serious economic crisis. There were important reasons behind this political decision,” he said.

In Milan, one movie house, Cinema Beltrade, organized an all-day film marathon, from 6 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. to celebrate with “a little craziness,” owner Monica Baldi said.

A socially distanced capacity crowd of 82 filled the cinema for the sunrise showing of Nanni Moretti’s 1993 film “Dear Diary,” a reprisal of the last film showing before shutdown in November that seemed only appropriate for the relaunch, Baldi said.

While Lombardy’s 500 live-performance theaters are permitted to open, the reality is more complicated. Distancing rules allow a maximum 500 spectators, even in large theaters like La Scala, which seats more than 2,000 people.

La Scala plans a symbolic reopening concert next month conducted by Riccardo Muti. But a relaunch of the season with full calendar is not expected before September, when management hopes the orchestra and chorus can be fully vaccinated, and distancing rules more relaxed. In the meantime, it is planning a series of open-air concerts around the city in the coming months.

“The important thing is that there will be occasions to have the audience return, and recreate the unique emotions of concerts,” general manager Dominique Meyer said.

Rome Airport Poised To Try ’COVID Tested” Flights From US

ROME (AP) — Italian authorities will soon approve an experiment with “COVID tested” flights from three U.S. airports with the aim of eliminating the required 14-day quarantine for passengers arriving in Italy, Rome’s main airport said Thursday. ADR, which operates Leonardo da Vinci Airport, said that similar “COVID tested” corridors were also expected to be approved for flights between the airport and the German cities of Munich and Frankfurt. An ADR statement said that pending approval from Italy’s transport, health and foreign ministries, starting sometime in December passengers coming from New York, Newark or Atlanta airports wouldn’t have to quarantine if they test negative for the coronavirus within 48 hours of departure and also upon arrival in Rome. The experiment involves Alitalia and Delta Air Lines.

Under pandemic rules in effect in Italy through at least Dec. 3, the only passengers who can enter the country from the United States are citizens of European Union nations, relatives of EU citizens, holders of Italian residency permits or those coming for reasons of study or a few other, essential purposes like health care. Coming from the United States to Italy for tourism isn’t allowed. Nothing in the ADR statement indicated that is about to change, even as Italy reels under plummeted tourist revenues during the pandemic. ADR expressed hopes that the limited, experimental program will prove workable and be expanded by next summer. Delta Air Lines said in a statement that along with Rome’s airport and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, it has joined in a “first-of-a-kind trans-Atlantic COVID-19 testing program that will enable quarantine-free entrance into Italy.” It quoted Delta executive Steve Sear as saying that “carefully designed COVID-19 testing protocols are the best path for resuming international travel safely and without quarantine until vaccinations are widely in place.” The airline’s statement said Delta’s “dedicated trial” involving testing customers and crew would begin Dec. 19. In contrast with the ADR statement, Delta said testing would be threefold: Passengers would be tested up to 72 hours before departure; a rapid test would conducted at the airport in Atlanta; and another rapid test administered upon arrival in Rome. Travelers also would undergo one more test at Rome’s airport before departing for the United States.