LIVE from Italy: Economy Starts to Reopen, But Masks - and Gloves - Required
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
New England native Rebecca Couto da Silva, who is studying in Bolzano, Italy, appeared on GoLocal LIVE for her weekly coronavirus update from the European country — which has reopened some areas of the economy, but da Silva says people are “still critical.”
According to da Silva, mask-wearing is still required, but there is some confusion regarding requirements.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“It was a little unclear — the law itself is about 50 pages so I read a 10-page summary of it,” she said. “Sometimes it said face protection and sometimes it said mask, and I’m not sure if those two things are different — but if we’re on say a park street, we should have a mask.”
“We definitely in stores have to wear masks. Stores are required to provide gloves, and then stores that provide personal services, such as a hairdresser, or beauticians, are also required to provide masks,” she said.
Restaurants in Italy began to reopen this week, with the requirement “you need to have two meters between tables, so six feet between tables,” said da Silva.
“Everything opened up, but for us what feels like so much freedom I believe is kind of what’s being protested in the U.S.,” she said.
“I think people are happy that it’s opening up again. Finally, you see families out,” said da Silva. “There’s also this idea you know, people are concerned that everyone has to wear these one-use gloves, and that’s just not necessarily friendly. if everyone has to use a hand sanitizer when you walk into a store, then what’s the point of gloves.”
“I think people -- even though we have all of these freedoms once again -- people are also critical of how hard the measures still are.”
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