Government set to pass post-holiday restrictions

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 4 - Premier Giuseppe Conte's cabinet is set to meet to approve the COVID-19-related restrictions that will be in force from Thursday, when the current regime of measures elapses.
    The meeting is likely to start at 21:00 on Monday, sources said.
    The whole of Italy has been a 'red zone' for most of the Christmas and New Year holidays, meaning, among other things, that non-essential shops were closed and bars and restaurants could only do take-away services.
    The nation reverted to being an orange zone on Monday, meaning non-essential shops can open but bars and restaurants remain closed.
    But it will be red again on Tuesday and on the Epiphany national holiday on Wednesday.
    Health Minister Roberto Speranza said Monday that the whole nation is likely to be a red zone again next weekend. A major question is whether Italy's high schools will reopen as planned on January 7.
    Up until Christmas high-school pupils were having class via distance learning.
    The government said that they would have 50% of their lessons at school and 50% via distance learning after the holidays.
    But the high levels of COVID-19 contagion have led to some experts and teachers to say the return to school for high-school student should be postponed.
    Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia are set to keep their high schools closed until January 31.
    Fabio Ciciliano, the secretary of the CTS panel of experts advising the government in its COVID policies, said it is no good reopening the high schools if then they have to be closed again shortly after.
    "The most important thing is not reopening the schools but keeping them open," Ciciliano told InBlu Radio.
    "The country cannot afford to risk reopening the schools and then have to close them after 10 days or two weeks. "It would show that the (contagion) figures are increasing again". The Lazio Regional Administrative Court (TAR), meanwhile, has told the premier's office to produce a report on the scientific evidence behind its decision to make elementary school children aged six to 11 to wear facemasks during class, even though the WHO and UNICEF recommended exemptions. (ANSA).