Here we provide the assessment of COVID-19 epidemic in Italy, which scale has led to serious challenges both for society and national health care system. Despite timely information regarding the pandemic spread of the novel coronavirus infection, the country's health care was not prepared to dramatically increased rate of patients with viral pneumonia at the first stage of the epidemic, infection control measures were not fully implemented that also led to spread of infection among health care workers. Socially vulnerable population groups did not seek timely medical care due to the lack of hospital facilities as well as well-trained medical personnel. At the second stage of developing epidemic, were also delayed and executed at varying timepoints in neighbor regions, with sustained insufficient management after implementing them that was reflected as ongoing rise of epidemic curve over long time. Delayed execution of anti-epidemic restrictive measures aimed at fighting against ongoing epidemic resulted in substantially increased morbidity and mortality among vulnerable population groups and retarded rate of decreasing COVID-19 epidemic curve. Analyzing response measures taken in Italy against COVID-19 epidemic should be appreciated by other countries while dealing with the current pandemic and preparing to react to novel biological threats in the future. © 2020 Saint Petersburg Pasteur Institute. All rights reserved.