I've seen so much confusion here about the exact rules in Italy if you test positive. This blog post from a few days ago offers the clearest explanation I've seen, so I thought I'd share:
https://anamericaninrome.com/2022/05/what-happens-if-you-test-positive-for-covid-in-italy/
While I have not been through the experience, I have seen several reports of those that have, and can at least make a couple comments:
I think the advice to get a local test and establish local care are good. However, in this day and age, many use remote tests and self-isolate, so their experience is different than what is described in the blog.
The blog is somewhat centered on someone who is in Italy and intends to stay. If you are trying to get clearance to fly home, your process is different, you likely want a recovery letter (not fully addressed in the blog), and you may not test negative by the time you fly. For example, a number of people have obtained recovery letters after 10 days as required by some airlines, not waiting the implied 21 days as noted in the blog.
It also differs whether you are showing symptoms or not, and when you stopped showing symptoms.
What happens if you test positive in a Pharmacy testing situation - prior to the test do they ask where you are staying and inform the hotel and authorities that you have tested positive to ensure you quarantine. Or is the onus on the traveller to do the right thing and self isolate themselves?
I believe the pharmacy is required to report the positive case to the Health Ministry, but somebody with more recent experience can probably confirm.
The pharmacy in Milan did not contact our hotel. We let the hotel know because we needed to stay for 10 more days. And the isolation period was 7 days in Italy. If you take another pharmacy test and you test positive again, it’s 7 more days, etc. til 21. We were advised to do the self tests after a few days and once we had tested negative two consecutive times to then do the pharmacy test. You still have to wait the 10 required days to obtain the Document of Recovery to get your boarding pass to re-enter the US but at least if you test negative you can mask up and go outside. I guess someone could have done things differently, taken the chance and attempted to circumvent the system but we had just lost at Russian roulette and got Covid and so our chances of successfully circumventing the system weren’t really high at that point.
