Italy records more than a million cases of coronavirus as doctors continue to push for the blockade

Da Paolo Tessione - November 12, 2020

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Italy on Wednesday exceeded the symbolic one million dollars, according to official data.

Italy has registered almost 33.000 new infections in the last 24 hours to reach 1.028.424 in total since the beginning of the pandemic, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

Deaths are also rising rapidly, with another 623 reported, bringing the total to 42.953.

Italy was the first in Europe to be hit by the outbreak earlier this year, triggering an unprecedented national blockade that has curbed infection rates
but it devastated the economy.

After a summer lull, cases have returned to growth in recent weeks, keeping pace with much of the continent.

The government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte last week introduced a nationwide night curfew and early closure of bars and restaurants, closing them entirely and further limiting the movement of residents in regions where contagion rates are highest.

Several regions, including hard hit Lombardy, have been declared "red zones" and placed under rules similar to those seen as a whole.

But medical experts are pushing for tougher national measures, amid warnings that health services are already failing under pressure.

Massimo Galli, head of the infectious disease department of the renowned Sacco hospital in Milan, warned on Monday that the situation is "largely out of control".

The Italian media report that the government is considering whether the blockade is now necessary or not.

On Wednesday, in an interview with the newspaper La Stampa, Conte said he was working "to avoid the closure of the entire national territory".

"We constantly monitor the evolution of the infection, the reactivity and the responsiveness of our health system," he said.

“We are above all confident that we will soon see the effects of the restrictive measures already adopted”.

Italy is the tenth country to cross the XNUMX million mark, after the United States, India, Brazil, Russia, France, Spain, Argentina, the United Kingdom and Colombia, according to an AFP tally.