国际英语资讯:Italy marks locked-down Easter as COVID-19 claims almost 20,000 lives_时事

国际英语资讯:Italy marks locked-down Easter as COVID-19 claims almost 20,000 lives

"We miss the smiles of our relatives, the hugs of our friends, the beautiful traditions of our towns ... The sacrifices each of us are making on this important Sunday are a gesture of authentic attachment to what really matters and what we will soon recover," said the prime minister.

"Together, we will make it," he concluded.

Normally, millions of Italians get on the road to visit family and friends and take mini-holidays over the long Easter weekend. However this year, the pandemic has caused hundreds of millions of euros in lost revenue, according to the National Federation of the Travel and Tourism Industry (Federturismo).

"Easter 2020 will be remembered due to the closure of over 95 percent of hotels across Italy and ... a loss of turnover of 300 million euros (328 million U.S. dollars) between Saturday and Monday," Federturismo said in its recent forecast for the holiday weekend.

Also on Sunday, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transportation said that with the aid of the Red Cross, rescued migrants and crew aboard the Alan Kurdi vessel run by Sea Eye, a German humanitarian NGO, will be transferred to an Italian vessel, where they will be quarantined.

"This humanitarian intervention cannot involve their coming ashore in Italian ports due to strong organizational and health care pressure during the COVID-19 emergency," said a ministry statement. "This pressure would make it complicated to accommodate the rescuers and those they rescued in fully secure conditions."