Mark Kostich/iStock(ROME) — An Italian woman taking her turtle out for a walk was fined the equivalent of 440 American dollars by Roman police for breaking strict COVID-19 confinement rules, according to Yahoo! News.
Italians need a justifiable reason to be out on the street in the middle of the pandemic, and while taking your dog out for a walk is considered a good enough reason to leave your home, the unidentified 60-year-old woman taking her “pizza-sized turtle” out for a stroll was not.
The pandemic has officially claimed more than 21,600 lives in the Mediterranean country as of Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University, yet Italian authorities reported issuing a record 16,545 fines on Easter Monday — a national holiday in the largely Catholic country. Another 13,756 fines were issued on Sunday.
Italians have even reportedly been joking on social media about renting their dogs to anyone who’s going stir crazy and needs a good excuse to go out.
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