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COVID-19

‘Do not let your guard down’: Spike in Italy’s coronavirus deaths shows small signs of slowing

Italian health officials voiced cautious hope on Sunday after the coronavirus death toll edged down from the previous day's world record and the rate of infections slowed.

Published: 22 March 2020 18:29 CET
Updated: 23 March 2020 09:02 CET
'Do not let your guard down': Spike in Italy's coronavirus deaths shows small signs of slowing
'Together, without fear': A public health notice in Naples. Photo: Carlo Hermann/AFP

The country's world-topping toll from its month-long crisis approached 5,500 and the number of COVID-19 infections neared 60,000.

But top health officials sounded — while not upbeat — encouraged to see daily deaths fall back from Saturday's grisly 793 to a slightly less shocking 651.

ANALYSIS: When will the coronavirus epidemic in Italy peak?

The number of new infections rose by a relatively modest 10.4 percent.

“The figures announced today are lower than those for yesterday,” Italian civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli told reporters.

“I hope and we all hope that these figures can be borne out in the coming days. But do not let your guard down.”

Italy has sacrificed its economy and liberties by shutting down and banning almost everything to halt the spread of a virus the government views as an existential threat.

READ ALSO: How authorities are battling to keep Italians at home


Photo: AFP

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte took the extra step on Saturday of announcing plans to close “non-essential” factories until April 3.

Conte has also indicated that the national lockdown will almost certainly be extended for an unknown number of weeks or even months.

Saturday's record death toll suggested that everything the Italian authorities were trying was failing. Sunday's numbers suddenly gave them hope.

“We must not get too enthusiastic or over-interpret things,” the government's scientific committee expert Franco Locatelli cautioned. But, he added: “It is a sign that we welcome positively”.

Italy's toll since the day the first European died of COVID-19 in Milan's Lombardy region on February 21 now stands at 5,476.

“These figures are always a matter of either seeing the glass as half full or half empty,” said Lombardy's regional health chief Giulio Gallera.

“Today, the glass is half full. But we are not declaring victory just yet.”

READ ALSO: 

Containment measures around Lombardy have been in effect since March 8 — five days longer than for Italy as a whole.

Some of the local measures around Milan's financial district and surrounding towns are even stricter that those for Italy as a whole. Lombardy governor Attilio Fontana created international headlines on Saturday by banning jogging.

Both local and national officials pleaded with Italians while announcing their restrictions to give up their freedoms for the nation's good for two weeks.

The two-week deadline in Lombardy expired on Sunday. The stakes were high — and the new numbers showed the measures might just be bearing fruit.

Milan's region reported just 30.4 percent of Italy's new infections on Sunday. It had reported 51.6 percent of the infections on March 8.

It had also been reporting about two-thirds of Italy's coronavirus deaths throughout the crisis. The region of 10 million officially registered 55.5 percent of Sunday's COVID-19 deaths.

Yet a range of other statistics pointed to a world-class healthcare system that was being tested to the utmost.

Sunday's figures showed the number of patients receiving intensive care rising above 3,000 for the first time. There were just 650 intensive care patients with COVID-19 two weeks ago.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus in Europe: An inside view of how the situation compares in different countries

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HEALTH

Covid-19 still causing 1,000 deaths a week in Europe, WHO warns

The World Health Organization's European office warned on Tuesday the risk of Covid-19 has not gone away, saying it was still responsible for nearly 1,000 deaths a week in the region. And the real figure may be much higher.

Published: 27 June 2023 13:27 CEST
Covid-19 still causing 1,000 deaths a week in Europe, WHO warns

The global health body on May 5 announced that the Covid-19 pandemic was no longer deemed a “global health emergency.”

“Whilst it may not be a global public health emergency, however, Covid-19 has not gone away,” WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge told reporters.

The WHO’s European region comprises 53 countries, including several in central Asia.

“Close to 1,000 new Covid-19 deaths continue to occur across the region every week, and this is an underestimate due to a drop in countries regularly reporting Covid-19 deaths to WHO,” Kluge added, and urged authorities to ensure vaccination coverage of at least 70 percent for vulnerable groups.

Kluge also said estimates showed that one in 30, or some 36 million people, in the region had experienced so called “long Covid” in the last three years, which “remains a complex condition we still know very little about.”

“Unless we develop comprehensive diagnostics and treatment for long Covid, we will never truly recover from the pandemic,” Kluge said, encouraging more research in the area which he called an under-recognised condition.

Most countries in Europe have dropped all Covid safety restrictions but some face mask rules remain in place in certain countries in places like hospitals.

Although Spain announced this week that face masks will no longer be required in certain healthcare settings, including hospitals and pharmacies, with a couple of exceptions.

Sweden will from July 1st remove some of its remaining Covid recommendations for the public, including advice to stay home and avoid close contact with others if you’re ill or have Covid symptoms.

The health body also urged vigilance in the face of a resurgence of mpox, having recorded 22 new cases across the region in May, and the health impact of heat waves.

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