Italy PM rebuffs employers' call to ease coronavirus lockdown

FILE PHOTO: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte stands during a session in the Senate, the upper house of parliament, on the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Rome, Italy, March 26, 2020 REUTERS/Alberto Lingria

ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday that Italy must stick with its rigid lockdown to try to curb the COVID-19 epidemic, rejecting calls from businesses to reopen factories.

"Scientists are telling us not to ease the restrictive measures at all," Conte told German newspaper Bild in an interview, according to audio files released to the press.