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HEALTH

Italy reports record number of recoveries as government looks at relaxing lockdown rules

Italian health officials on Friday said Italy has seen a record high number of recoveries, and a new low number of Covid-19 patients being treated in hospital.

Italy reports record number of recoveries as government looks at relaxing lockdown rules
The colours of the Italian flag were projected onto the Rialto bridge in Venice on April 16th as a sign of hope in this difficult and delicate moment for Italy. Photo: Andrea Pattaro/AFP

The number of people currently being treated for Covid-19 rose by only a few hundred for the first time since the outbreak began.

Figures from the civil protection service showed the number of those receiving hospital care or recovering at home under medical supervision rising by 355 to 106,962 on Friday.

But the figure outside the outbreak's Italian epicentre in Milan's northern region of Lombardy went up by just 11 cases.

It went up by 344 in Lombardy itself.

The number had been rising by at least 1,000 a day nationally for over a month.

“In absolute terms, we have had had the highest number of recoveries since the start of the crisis,” civil protection service chief Angelo Berrelli told reporters.

A doctor checks on a patient in the intensive care unit of the Casal Palocco hospital near Rome. Photo: AFPI

taly's official death toll still rose by another 575 fatalities Friday to 22,745 – the second-highest toll after the United States.

The number of new officially registered infections rose by 3,493 on Friday – about the same as it has been all week.

The generally improving picture prompted the civil protection service to announce that it was suspending daily briefings and moving to a twice-a-week format. New figures will still be issued daily.

“Phase two”

The Italian government is still debating how and when it should start lifting the national lockdown, which has left millions furloughed and unemployed.

The current restrictions are due to expire on May 3rd, and the government is planning to partially lift stay-at-home orders in regions where new cases have sharply dropped.

The government's public health council chief Franco Locatelli hinted Friday that restricted may be eased in regions south of Rome, which are less affected by the outbreak.

READ ALSO: When will it be possible to travel to Italy again?

“We have prevented the spread of contagion in southern regions. This is now a fact supported by (Friday's) figures,” Locatelli said.

But the scale to which businesses are allowed to open across the economically stronger north, much harder hit by the outbreak, will be determined by the number of deaths and recoveries reported over the coming days.

Italy is still digging though data from individual regions to determine the health and economic effects of its worst crisis since World War II.

READ ALSO: Venice slowly comes back to life under local 'soft lockdown' rules

Previously undisclosed figures from its public health institute revealed that nearly 17,000 medics have been infected with the virus since Italy's first Covid-19 death was recorded on February 21.

Several Italian doctors have expressed fears that infected health care workers may have been unwittingly spreading the disease to their patients in the early weeks of the outbreak.

Covid-19 has now killed 125 doctors in Italy, according to study released Thursday by the Fnomceo medical association.

Media reports on Friday said that at least 34 nurses have also died of the disease.

Italy's official death toll is thought to be underestimated.

Doctors now believe that Italy's real number of deaths could be double the official figure in some of the worst-hit provinces around Milan.

Photo: AFPI

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HEALTH

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

As Italy’s new school year began, masks and hand sanitiser were distributed in schools and staff were asked to prevent gatherings to help stem an increase in Covid infections.

Italy’s schools warned to ‘avoid gatherings’ as Covid cases rise

Pupils returned to school in many parts of Italy on Monday and authorities said they were distributing masks and hand sanitiser amid a post-summer increase in the number of recorded cases of Covid–19.

“The advice coming from principals, teachers and janitors is to avoid gatherings of students, especially in these first days of school,” Mario Rusconi, head of Italy’s Principals’ Association, told Rai news on Monday.

He added that local authorities in many areas were distributing masks and hand sanitizer to schools who had requested them.

“The use of personal protective equipment is recommended for teachers and students who are vulnerable,” he said, confirming that “use is not mandatory.”

A previous requirement for students to wear masks in the classroom was scrapped at the beginning of the last academic year.

Walter Ricciardi, former president of the Higher Health Institute (ISS), told Italy’s La Stampa newspaper on Monday that the return to school brings the risk of increased Covid infections.

Ricciardi described the health ministry’s current guidelines for schools as “insufficient” and said they were “based on politics rather than scientific criteria.”

READ ALSO:

Recorded cases of Covid have increased in most Italian regions over the past three weeks, along with rates of hospitalisation and admittance to intensive care, as much of the country returns to school and work following the summer holidays.

Altogether, Italy recorded 21,309 new cases in the last week, an increase of 44 percent compared to the 14,863 seen the week before.

While the World Health Organisation said in May that Covid was no longer a “global health emergency,” and doctors say currently circulating strains of the virus in Italy are not a cause for alarm, there are concerns about the impact on elderly and clinically vulnerable people with Italy’s autumn Covid booster campaign yet to begin.

“We have new variants that we are monitoring but none seem more worrying than usual,” stated Fabrizio Maggi, director of the Virology and Biosafety Laboratories Unit of the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome

He said “vaccination coverage and hybrid immunity can only translate into a milder disease in young and healthy people,” but added that “vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable continues to be important.”

Updated vaccines protecting against both flu and Covid are expected to arrive in Italy at the beginning of October, and the vaccination campaign will begin at the end of October, Rai reported.

Amid the increase in new cases, Italy’s health ministry last week issued a circular mandating Covid testing on arrival at hospital for patients with symptoms.

Find more information about Italy’s current Covid-19 situation and vaccination campaign on the Italian health ministry’s website (available in English).

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