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Italy’s coronavirus death toll passes 35,000

A further 20 Covid-19 fatalities has pushed the total number of deaths in Italy to over 35,000, authorities announced on Thursday.

Published: 16 July 2020 19:05 CEST
Italy's coronavirus death toll passes 35,000
Photo: Ciro Fusco/ANSA/AFP
The Italian civil protection department said the total death toll in the country was now up to 35,017. 
 
That compares to 13 deaths on Wednesday.
 
By far the largest number of deaths were recorded in the northern Lombardy region, which was hit first and hardest by the pandemic, and where 16,775 people have died.
 
There have also been 230 more Covid-19 infections within the last 24 hours in Italy, compared to the 162 new cases registered on Wednesday.
 
The department said the number of people to have recovered from COVID-19 is up 230 to 196,246.
 
Nearly 12,500 people are currently positive for Covid-19, 750 of whom are being treated in hospital, and 53 in intensive care.
 
The total number of recorded cases since the outbreak began in Italy in late February – a figure which includes the deceased, the recovered and the currently positive – is now 243,736.
  
Italy was the first Western country to introduce a lockdown over the pandemic. The peak has long passed, but pockets of the virus periodically emerge, the latest being over 40 cases discovered this week among asylum seekers in Veneto.
 

That compares to 13 deaths on Wednesday.

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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.

Published: 11 September 2023 12:48 CEST
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.”

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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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