Italy’s extended quarantine measures restricting the movement of people in the northern regions have provoked panic among residents and accentuated the country’s north-south divide.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signed a decree imposing restrictions to the movement of people in the northern region of Lombardy — the epicenter of the outbreak in Italy — and 14 other provinces across the north, until April 3.

The measures (an extension of a pre-existing lockdown of 11 towns in Lombardy and Veneto) now affect more than 16 million people, banning them from moving in and out of those areas.

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