A couple have been charged after being caught meeting up in a car during Italy’s lockdown over its coronavirus outbreak.

Officers in the northern Piedmont region found two people in a relationship inside a vehicle together one night this week, despite a ban on leaving the house unless for essential reasons.

“They have not understood the rules of love in the time of coronavirus very well,” police in Asti said, adding they had been charged for not following Italy's containment measures.

The couple had tried to hide themselves away near a park, local media said.

“We are boyfriend and girlfriend, and we haven’t seen each other for days,” they said, according to newspaper La Repubblica.

Italians have been ordered to stay at least a metre away from other people, and to remain at home unless it is necessary to go outside – to buy groceries or go to work, for example – as part of a nationwide lockdown.

Around 110,000 people have been charged by police for ignoring the restrictions since 11 March, the interior ministry has said.

Some priests have reportedly been told off by authorities for still going ahead with funerals during the lockdown.

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Italy’s government said this week it would be tightening up sanctions for those who break the containment rules, raising fines to between €400 (£366) to €3,000 (£2,745) – up from a maximum of €206 (£188).

Meanwhile, if people who have been quarantined after testing positive for coronavirus “intentionally violate the total ban on leaving their house”, they could face a prison sentence of between one to five years, according to the emergency law-decree.

More than 74,000 people have been infected with the flu-like virus in Italy, according to official figures on Thursday.

Around 7,500 who tested positive have died in the country – more than double the death toll in China, where the disease originated towards the end of last year.