Covid-19. The DPCM 17.5.20 – in following up on the DPCM 26.4.20 that introduced phase 2 – recalls the ‘Guidelines for the Reopening of Economic, Productive and Recreational Activities‘ adopted on 16.5.20 by the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces. (1)
Decree Law 16.5.20 no. 33 establishes for this purpose the administrative penalties to be applied, subject to criminal law enforcement, and the controls to be carried out.
Guidelines Regions and Autonomous Provinces, 16.5.20
The Guidelines serve to protect the health of workers and users as they resume economic, productive and recreational activities. (2) The document:
– incorporates the DPCM 17.5.20 on urgent measures to be taken in phase 2 of Covid-19 emergency as of 18.5.20,
– implements Protocol 24.4.20 for the containment of SARS-CoV-2 infection in workplaces and related activities, in their respective areas,
– applies throughout the country, subject to the possible provision of more restrictive or detailed measures in certain geographical contexts (based on regional and/or municipal ordinances,
– Defines general requirements and specific obligations.
GENERAL PRESCRIPTIONS
All operators must follow the general precepts that follow.
▶️ Informational signage, understandable even in languages other than Italian-better yet, through symbols-about symptoms, hygiene rules, and proper use of special garrisons.
▶️ Hand sanitization and PPE (personal protective equipment) use, procedures and sanitization points for users. Refers to the use of masks in common spaces, preferably of the FFP2 type without an attendant valve. (3)
▶️ Staggered access, rarefied attendance, regulated payments. It is noted, among other things, how electronic payment systems promote the exact tracking of attendance.
▶️ Attendance tracking, to be maintained for 14 days (estimated average incubation period of the new coronavirus).
▶️ Structural or spatial barriers to encourage compliance with the minimum interpersonal safety distance (1 meter, subject to exceptions). In dutiful compliance with regulations designed to eliminate architectural barriers for people with disabilities.
▶️ Prioritize the use of outdoor spaces, ensure adequate indoor air exchange. Appropriate maintenance and sanitation of filter systems, exclude recirculation function in air conditioners.
▶️ Limit contact with all inanimate surfaces (e.g., door handles, faucets). Introducing alternative tools where possible (e.g., automatic, electronic). Ensure frequent sanitization of human contact points.
In the food sector, the self-control plan must be updated with an Annex where measures to counter SARS-CoV-19 infection are provided.
SPECIFIC OBLIGATIONS
1) TRADE
Retail trade
Practitioners must:
– Provide customers with disposable gloves for handling goods,
– Perform daily sanitization of premises open to the public.
Retail trade in public areas
In relation to markets, fairs and markets, municipalities must:
– Spacing out stalls and manning market areas,
– To distinguish entry and exit points by means of placards, viz.
– Appropriately mark one-way routes,
– Provide areas for waiting for customers to queue at stalls, if necessary by enlarging the market area (where this is not possible, used goods sales activities must be suspended).
Merchants and permit/post holders must:
– Perform preoperative sanitization,
– Provide customers with hand sanitizing solutions and disposable gloves for handling garments,
– Sanitize used clothing and shoes before offering them for sale.
Floriculture and green maintenance
Operators must:
– Comply with the general rules of social distancing both when delivering plants and flowers for planting to the customer and when working on the site and in common areas,
– Avoid mixed use of machinery and equipment and sanitize them after use.
Employers are encouraged to make hand sanitizing solutions available, including on vehicles.
2) HOSPITALITY.
Catering
Every meal and beverage serving establishment, including canteens, self-service and activities located within accommodation facilities must prepare:
– tables/seating/counter seating separated by the minimum space of 1 meter or by physical barriers,
– Procedures for sanitizing the station at each customer change,
– Blackboard or electronic menus (accessible with smartphones). That is, disposable (or plastic, to be sanitized after each use),
– alternatives to buffet consumption, which remains prohibited.
Patrons must be extremely careful not to violate the minimum safe distance (1 meter), all the more so since they are not using a mask. Which in turn must be handled properly where not worn.
Accommodation facilities
Managers of hotels, farmhouses, etc. must prepare:
– procedures to avoid gatherings, including at check-in and check-out, preferring online solutions and electronic payments,
– Procedures for sanitizing equipment (at each customer change) and common areas (at least at the end of the day),
– Diversified and marked routes in and out of the facility.
Guests should always minimize gatherings outside the household or travel unit, including in elevators and common spaces.
3) OFFICES AND CULTURE
Offices open to the public
Owners and managers of public and private offices, professional firms, etc. Must:
– Promote remote contact, both for users and for holding meetings,
– Ensure compliance with safety distances. Where impossible, ensure the use of mask,
– Provide for sanitation of workstations at the end of work performance.
Users are encouraged to take advantage of services available remotely as much as possible, that is, to use the reservation tool.
Museums, archives and libraries
Curators are required to:
– Define and share an access plan (to be displayed and posted on website), so as to ensure rarefied attendance (including through reservation systems),
– Introduce appropriate signage and instructor training,
– Establish procedures for sanitizing rooms, facilities, equipment and touch points (handles, handrails, audioguides, etc.), with appropriate means to protect cultural property,
– Ensure disinfection of equipment, touch points and environments at customer changeover and at the end of the day (excluding public access to what cannot be disinfected).
Visitors are encouraged to follow the marked routes, reserving the use of elevators for people with reduced mobility.
4) SPORTS AND TOURISM
Gyms
Gyms must come equipped so as to:
– Ensure a minimum interpersonal distance of 2 meters during physical activity,
– Ensure disinfection of equipment (with special attention to handles, knobs, etc.), when user changes. And of the environments at the end of the day,
– Exclude the possibility of using what cannot be disinfected.
Therefore, one must:
– Regulate the flow of users to reduce the possibility of congregation (e.g., shifts, reservations),
– Apply appropriate signage,
– Train instructors and staff.
Sportsmen are urged to abide by the rules given to them, as well as to:
– Avoid mixed use of lockers, i.e., store personal belongings in disposable bags,
– Avoid promiscuity in bottles, glasses, towels, etc.
– Use dedicated footwear.
Swimming pools
Pools must implement the self-control plan with a special annex dedicated to combating SARS-CoV-2 infection. Anticipating:
– Reserve a space >7 m2 for each user (water mirror and walkway),
– Ensure the distance >1.5 m between the equipment (sunbeds, deckchairs, etc.) of people who do not belong to the same household,
– Perform chemical and microbiological analysis of water at least monthly, (2)
– Verification every 2 hours of chlorine and pH parameters in the pool (free active chlorine 1.0 – 1.5 mg/l, combined chlorine ≤ 0.40 mg/l, pH 6.5 – 7.5 in the presence of bathers), with immediate corrective action in case of noncompliance.
Management must therefore:
– Regulate user flows to reduce the possibility of gatherings,
– Provide appropriate signage and train bathing instructors/assistants,
– Sanitize equipment at customer change, common areas at the end of the day.
Users must in turn follow basic hygiene rules (use of headphones, shower before bathing, etc.), as well as:
– Comply with the rules in signage and given by instructors/swimming assistants,
– Avoiding gatherings outside of family groups,
– Store personal belongings in disposable bags (the use of promiscuous lockers is discouraged),
– Watching over the children.
Pools aimed at aquatic play, if it is impossible to ensure the above requirements, may be converted to swimming pools. Demonstrations, events, parties and entertainment, as well as the use of grandstands, are prohibited.
Bathing establishments
Bathing establishments and equipped beaches must have prepared:
– procedures to avoid gatherings (to apply to free beaches as well, under the responsibility of municipalities),
– Procedures for sanitizing equipment (e.g., deck chairs, tables) at each customer change. And of the common areas, at least at the end of the day,
– ‘Parasol places’ of at least 10 m2 per household, spacing of equipment not associated with such places at least 1.5 m.
Individual sports and recreational activities (swimming, paddle boarding, windsurfing) are possible, with due attention paid to observing safety distances.
5) PERSONAL SERVICES
All personal services-such as those offered by barbers, hairdressers and beauticians-must provide:
– procedures for booking and registering the customer list in the next 14 days,
– stations spaced at least one meter apart, to be sanitized when customers change.
Personnel who cannot observe the safe distance, depending on the type of activity, should use FFP2 type masks without valve and visor (for eye protection). (3)
Gatherings in common areas should be minimized, while observing safety distances. With a ban on mixed use of magazines.
The use of saunas, steam baths and hot tubs is prohibited.
ADMINISTRATIVE PENALTIES
‘Failure to comply with the contents of regional, or, in the absence thereof, national protocols or guidelines (…) that do not ensure adequate levels of protection results in the suspension of the activity until safety conditions are restored.’ (DL 16.5.20 No. 33, Article 1.15)
Violations of the regulations established in Decree-Law No. 33, 16.5.20, or the decrees and ordinances issued in its implementation-including the guidelines under consideration-are punishable by:
– Main administrative penalty of paying a sum of 400 to 3,000 euros. With increase of up to one-third, when violations are committed through the use of a vehicle, and assumptions of reduced payment, (5)
– closure of the business establishment or activity-from 5 to 30 days, as an ancillary administrative penalty-if the violation was committed there.
‘In case of repeated violation of the same provision, the administrative penalty shall be doubled and the accessory penalty shall be applied to the maximum extent.’ (DL 16.5.20 No. 33, Article 4.5)
CRIMINAL SANCTIONS
As for the offenses that public officials can charge:
– the offense set forth in Article 650 of the Criminal Code(failure to comply with the measures of authority) does not apply to the aforementioned cases, by express statutory provision. (6)
– the act may constitute a violation of Article 452 of the Criminal Code(culpable crimes against public health) or more serious crimes, (7)
CHECKS
Penalties for violations of measures ordered by state authorities are imposed by the Prefect. Those related to violations of measures ordered by regional and local authorities are imposed by the authorities that ordered them.
The possibility for prosecutors and judicial police to carry out pre-investigative activities and take notice of crimes, including on their own initiative, remains unaffected. As well as receiving reports of crimes filed or forwarded through complaints and exposures. (8)
Dario Dongo, Sarah Lanzilli, Amaranta Traversa, Claudio Biglia
Notes
(1) DPCM 17.5.20. See Foreword, Article 1, Annex 17
(2) Swimming pool water analysis according to parameters in State-Regions and Autonomous Provinces Agreement 16.1.03, Annex 1, Table A
(3) Strictly speaking, we add, public contact workers who cannot ensure safe distances with users should wear a surgical mask over the respirator (type FFP2 or FFP3/N95), since only the former can protect other people than the wearer.
Dario Dongo, Tiziana Polimeno. Covid-19. FFP3 (N95) and FFP2 surgical masks and respirators, further study. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 4.4.20, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/salute/covid-19-mascherine-chirurgiche-e-respiratori-ffp3-n95-e-ffp2-approfondimento
(4) Decree Law 16.5.20 no. 33. Additional urgent measures to cope with the epidemiological emergency from COVID-19 (20G00051). In OJ General Series 16.5.20 no. 125, https://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/eli/id/2020/05/16/20G00051/sg
(5) Payment within 60 days of the minimum amount stipulated in the standard. Cf. DL 33/20, Article 4.3. With reference to d.lgs. 282/92, Article 201, paragraphs 1 and 2
(6) DL 33/20, Article 2.1(controls and penalties). With reference to DL 25.3.20 no. 19, Article 4.1
(7) Criminal Code, Articles 440(Adulteration or counterfeiting of foodstuffs), 441 (Adulteration or counterfeiting of other things to the detriment of public health), 442(Trade in counterfeit or adulterated foodstuffs), 443(Trade in or administration of faulty medicines), 444(Trade in noxious foodstuffs), 445(Trade in noxious foodstuffs)
(8) Code of Criminal Procedure, Articles 330 et seq.
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Veterinary manager ASL Città di Torino, specialist in Inspection of food of animal origin, expert in food law, has published in international journals and deals, among other things, with food delivery and hygiene of collective catering.
Veterinarian, specialist in the inspection of food of animal origin. He participates in several research projects in food safety and microbiology. She co-authored numerous monographs on food safety and over thirty scientific publications.
Veterinary surgeon, specializing in the inspection of food of animal origin. Since 1982 he has been a public veterinarian, since 1990 he has taught at the Universities of Turin and Teramo. He is the author of over seventy scientific publications and co-author of various texts on microbiology, radiocontamination of food, surveillance, health and food law, trade in public areas and communication in health emergencies.
