Still unexplained
The hunt for the origins of Covid-19 has for the past four years been a tangled web of politics, power struggles, and international finger-pointing.
Italy’s COVID-19 death toll rose by 610 in the last 24 hours to 18,279, the highest in the world, even as pressure on the country’s hospitals continued to ease with a fall in the number of patients in intensive care units, according to the Civil Protection Agency.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte held a teleconference with business and labour leaders to discuss when Italy can begin to relax the restrictions imposed to contain the disease, Efe news reported.
The shutdown was initially meant to last until April 13, but chances that any significant easing would take place was deemed as virtually non-existent.
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“We need to pick sectors that can restart their activity. If scientists confirm it, we might begin to relax some measures already by the end of this month,” Conte told the BBC.
The final decision on when and how to re-open the economy will be made by the Scientific Technical Council that is advising the government on the crisis.
The number of new confirmed cases grew 1,615 overnight to 96,877. That increase was larger than the previous day’s, 1,195, and nearly double Tuesday’s figure of 880.
The total number of cases in the country now stands at 153,222, the second highest in the world after the US (466,033).
China has reported 42 new coronavirus cases, including 38 imported infections, taking the total tally to 81,907, health officials said on Friday, as the country started a new trial of re-testing the recovered COVID-19 patients amid heightened concern of a rebound of the deadly disease.
Meanwhile, the death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 90,000 worldwide on Thursday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
(With inputs from agency)
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