People wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 pray in John Paul II chapel in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in the day of its reopening which coincided with John Paul II 100th anniversary of birth, Monday, May 18, 2020. Italy is slowly lifting sanitary restrictions after a two-month coronavirus lockdown. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Churches have been allowed to reopen in Italy alongside restaurants, bars, cafes, hairdressers and other businesses after more than two months of national lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Restrictions had been enforced in March but, as the spread of the virus continued to slow down, Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s prime minister, recently announced that the country would take a “calculated risk” to resume activities.
According to the BBC, morning mass held on Monday at the Santa Maria del Rosario, a Dominican church, where Catholics converged under strict precautionary measures to say the rosary for the first time in a long while.
It was gathered that pews were disinfected before the service, the priest wore gloves to place the communion wafer in people’s hands instead of their mouths, and worshippers were made to sit apart in observance of physical distancing.
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“It was strange to feel the body of Christ on these gloves. But it’s so important for people to be able to get closer to God again at this time,” said Marco Borghi, a reverend father of the church, who spoke after the reopening.
Time also reports that guards in hazmat suits took the temperature of those entering St. Peter’s Basilica, a church in the Vatican City, where Pope Francis celebrated an early morning mass for a handful of people in a side chapel.
In Venice, churches are preparing for congregants to fully return, with Riccardo Giacon of the city’s Basilica dei Frari stating that seats would be measured out and marked in a bid to enforce a six-feet physical distancing during mass.
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Italy has the third-highest COVID-19 death toll after the United States and Britain, with the European country reporting 225,435 confirmed cases of the disease and nearly 31,500 deaths — as of May 18.
Italy was also the first European country to impose nationwide restrictions in March. The restrictions were eased a bit on May 4, when it allowed factories and parks to reopen.
While reopening the country’s economy, Conte had said: “We’re facing a calculated risk in the knowledge that the contagion curve may rise again. We have to accept it otherwise we’ll never be able to start up again.”
Aside from Italy, Spain, among other European countries, has slightly eased restrictions on some of its least affected islands.
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