Italy imposed draconian measures to stop people from traveling to the coast, the mountains or second homes over the Easter period as Spain recorded its lowest number of daily deaths from coronavirus for more than two weeks.

Spain reported 605 deaths on Friday, taking the overall death toll to nearly 16,000.

But the figure was the lowest for 17 days and offered fresh hope that the country may be over the worst of its Covid-19 outbreak.

The daily rate of new infections dropped to three per cent, the lowest since the health emergency began.

After a two-week freeze of all nonessential economic activity, factories and building sites are due to resume work on Monday.

Salvador Illa, the health minister, warned Spaniards not to break the lockdown rules over the Easter weekend. “We are not yet in the phase of de-escalation,” he said.

More than 2,000 people were fined by police in Madrid on Thursday after being stopped at roadblocks and found to have no valid reason for travel.

In Italy, the government was expected to issue a new decree which will extend the national lockdown until May 3.

More than 18,000 people have died in Italy – the highest number of any country in the world – but the rate of new infections has been slowly falling. Another 570 people died on Friday, down from 610 on Thursday.

Since March 11, shortly after the lockdown was imposed, police and soldiers have carried out six million spot checks and fined 220,000 people for not having a valid reason for being out on the streets.