You do understand that 99.9% of businesses in Italy are small and medium companies with fewer than 250 employees [1], yes?

[1] http://doitbetter.info/smes-overview/

Yes, and small and medium companies have expenses, yes? And a plurality of those expenses go to billion dollar, multinational companies, yes? If you quarantine an area, people stop purchasing oil, yes?

Or, you know, the supply lines of food, medicine, etc. that make modern life possible.

What's the phrase? Something like a country is never more than a week without food from revolution?

You can maintain all of this in a quarantine situation with proper planning.

People still need to pay rent and bills, even the people flipping burgers.

Truly halting the economy is a catastrophe of it own.