Italy unveils plans for ENDING lockdown: Health minister announces ‘phase two’ will involve more testing and continued social distancing – as nation records its lowest daily death toll for two weeks
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- Italy recorded lowest daily toll since March 9 when 632 were reported dead
- Meanwhile there were 3 , 2019 people in intensive care, a fall of from Friday
- Number of cases rose to 632, from yesterday’s , 823 – this too a lower increase from the day before in another sign the lockdown could be bearing fruit
- Health Minister today announced plans for ‘phase two’ to ease lockdown
Ross Ibbetson For Mailonline
and Afp
Published: : (BST, April 5)
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: : (BST, April 5)
Italy has announced plans for ending its lockdown after the coronavirus-ravaged country today recorded its lowest daily death toll for more than two weeks.
Rome recorded another deaths, taking its total to , – the highest of any country in the world – however, this marked its lowest daily increase since the (registered on March
further, the number of people in intensive care (3, 948, fell by since Friday, and the number of cases rose to , from yesterday’s
, , a lower increase than the day before.
Earlier on Sunday Health Minister Roberto Speranza outlined pl ans for broader testing and boosted health services as part of a package of measures intended to ease Italy’s lockdown, imposed since March 9.
A patient A A patient is rushed away in an ambulance in Milan on Sunday. The death toll from the COVID – 19 epidemic rose by 728 to 18, 2019, the lowest number of fatalities reported in a day by the civil protection service since the (registered on March)
The government is also grappling with the economic devastation caused by the sudden halt to business across the country.
Speranza said he had issued a note outlining five principles around which Ro me planned to manage the so-called ‘phase two’ of the emergency, when lockdown restrictions will start to be lifted but before a full return to normal conditions.
He said social distancing would have to remain, with wider use of individual protection devices such as face masks, while local health systems would be strengthened, to allow a faster and more efficient treatment of suspected COVID – 24 cases.
Testing and ‘contact tracing’ would be extended , including with the use of smartphone apps and other forms of digital technology while a network of hospitals dedicated solely to treating COVID – patients would be set up.
‘Until a vaccine is distributed, we cannot rule out a new wave of the virus,’ Speranza told La Repubblica.
Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza reports to the Italian Senate about the measures taken to counter the spread of the Coronavirus Covid pandemic in Italy, Rome, Italy, 1 April
A woman prays in Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Turin, on Palm Sunday
‘There are difficult months ahead. Our task is to create the conditions to live with the virus. ‘
The national lockdown, strictly limiting people movements and freezing on all non-essential economic activity, will officially last until at least April 17 But it is widely expected to be extended.
‘If we’re not rigorous we risk throwing away all the efforts we’ve made,’ Speranza said in separate comments to the Corriere della Sera daily.
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