Italy opens again amid hopes for real economic relaunch

Italy’s gradual reopening after six months of rotating virus closures is satisfying no one: Too cautious for some, too hasty for others

MILAN -- Lunch-time diners filled tables on Milan’s landmark Piazza Duomo even on a cloudy, windswept Monday, proof of the pent-up demand for eating out as Italy begins its second, and many hope last, reopening of the COVID-19 pandemic. After six months of rotating on-again, off-again closures, restaurants, bars, museums and cinemas opened to the public in most of the country under a gradual reopening plan that is seen as too cautious for some, too hasty for others. The nation’s weary virologists and health care workers fear that even the tentative reopening laid out by Premier Mario Draghi’s government will invite a free-or-all, signs of which were seen over the weekend with parks and squares filling up in cities from Rome to Turin, Milan to Naples. “It is illusory to think that you give a sign of opening, and you don’t see people around. Perfection doesn’t exist,’’ Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala said Monday. “You also have to be a little tolerant, and also a little careful.”