Italy is to ease its lockdown on May 4 and open bars and restaurants again in June after seven weeks of shutdown to curb coronavirus.
Seen as Britain's blueprint with an outbreak two weeks ahead of the UK, Italy will allow factories and building sites to reopen a week today and permit limited family visits Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte laid out his plan to end the lockdown on Sunday, more than two months after the first case of COVID-19 appeared in a small town outside Milan.
Following weeks of lockdown and more than 26,000 deaths, Italy is looking ahead to a second phase of the crisis in which it will attempt to restart the economy without triggering a new wave of infections.