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Italy deploys soldiers to help combat coronavirus

Soldiers are being deployed to Italian streets to keep people away and limit the spread of coronavirus.

The first group was deployed to Campania and Sicily regions yesterday. Today soldiers will be deployed to all the other regions.

In the previous days military trucks had been deployed across Italy to transport victims’ coffins to be cremated.

In places like Bergamo, mortuaries are full and crematorium staff have been handling 24 bodies a day.

The government is studying stricter measures to stop the coronavirus infection. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the country’s lockdown will be extended beyond the current end-date of April 3.

He confirmed that the measures taken to close schools and universities in the country and to restrict movement throughout Italy would have to be prolonged.

He however didn’t mention for how long this will go on but since the coronavirus outbreak in Italy keeps worsening, nobody can know with certainly the new end-date.

Schools and universities which were previously scheduled to reopen on 3rd April are likely to remain closed until 3rd May or even later. Ministry of Education has hinted that the schools may not even reopen this academic year.

The current lockdown rules bar people from leaving their homes except to get food or medicines or to perform other essential services or to go to work. Throughout the county only grocery stores and pharmacies are the only stores that remain open.

There are plans to close down the supermarkets and grocery stores on weekends and ban people from dog walking in the parks to limit the spread of coronavirus.

More than 43,000 people been caught breaking the lockdown rules in the first week of controls.