ROME: Italy has approved a new round of tight anti-Covid restrictions countrywide, which will be implemented between March 15-April 6, including Easter Sunday and the following Monday.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi's cabinet passed the order on Friday, after discussing it on Thursday night with the scientific-technical committee counseling Italian authorities during the pandemic emergency, as per reports Xinhua news.

The provision will bring Italy back into a sort of lockdown-light, with restrictions very similar to those imposed over the Christmas-New Year period, which had allowed keeping the pandemic curve under control in January. The three-tiered system, which divides the country into yellow, orange, and red zones -- for lower, medium, and high level of contagion risk, respectively -- was confirmed.

Bars, restaurants, hairdressers, beauty salons and any other leisure facility will remain closed.

Ahead of Easter, and starting on Monday, the regions currently in the yellow zone will be moved up into the orange zone, regardless of their local pandemic condition.

The new order provided the whole country will turn "red" during the Easter weekend (April 3-5), thus embracing the maximum level of restrictions on business and social life.

In these days, people will be required to remain at home as much as possible, but for one single visit allowed to another private home a day by maximum two adults plus under-14 children.

In addition, the decree provided that any area in the country registering more than 250 cases per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days on average would be automatically declared a red zone between March 15 and April 6.

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