The world's eighth biggest economy and its 60 million citizens are under lockdown. Italy became the first European nation to introduce drastic measures controlling the spread of COVID-19.
Italy has recorded more deaths from the new coronavirus than China, the origin of the outbreak.
In addition to school closures and shuttered shops, businesses are winding down nonessential work and transport hubs are grounding to a halt.
The Italian government has pledged $28bn to ease the burden of the pandemic. That includes helping companies, homeowners with mortgage payments, and people facing unemployment.
Italy really needs all the support it can get right now as it has never really recovered from Europe's debt crisis. Its debt stands close to 135 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and growth since the introduction of the euro, almost 20 years ago, has barely grown.
Such is the dire state of its economy. Recession is looming and there have been warnings that it may need to seek a bailout from the eurozone and even the IMF.
Lorenzo Codogno, the chief economist at LC Macro Advisors, tells Al Jazeera the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Italian economy may be "sizable", with a contraction rate of 5 percent or more in the current year.
"This is on the assumption that by June, most of the economic impact is over," Codogno adds.
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