We collected data published daily from the first COVID-19 case until May 3, 2020, the end of lockdown, by Italy’s Protezione Civile Department ( Presidency of the Council of Ministers, 2020). We hypothesized that the pandemic mitigation effects of lockdown in terms of mortality have been influenced by the level of penetration of COVID-19 in Italian Regions at the onset of containment.

On March 9, 2020, the Italian government imposed a nationwide community containment, restricting the movement of the population except for well-defined circumstances of necessity such as work or health reasons, to avoid the uncontrolled spreading of infection throughout the country. In Italy, COVID-19 spread out in a north-south direction, determining geographical disparities in the number of confirmed cases and deaths among the twenty Italian regions ( La Maestra et al., 2020, Russo et al., 2020).

During the next 24 h, the number of reported positive cases increased to 36 ( Sebastiani et al., 2020, Grasselli et al., 2020). On February 20, 2020, a 30-year-old patient admitted to the intensive care unit in Codogno Hospital (Lombardy, Italy) tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a novel beta-coronavirus that causes Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Italy lockdown february 2020