Italy has exceeded the 100,000 threshold for persons infected with the novel coronavirus, an increase of 1,996 on Friday. This was announced by the Head of the Civil Protection, Angelo Borelli, who also stated that just under 20% of these, or 19,468 persons, had now lost their lives. 619 persons died in the past 24 hours.
In the affluent Lombardy region, positive cases have gone up to 57,592, an increase of 1,544 new cases on the previous day. Giulio Gallera, Welfare Secretary of the Region, insisted that “these numbers do not yet allow us to sit back and relax”. 10,511 persons have lost their lives in this region alone (an increase of 273).
Meanwhile, the health authorities have announced plans to increase testing for the virus and use voluntary contact tracing as soon as Government decides to soften lockdown restrictions, currently in force until 3rd May. Domenico Arcuri, Government’s commissioner for the emergency announced that there will be mandatory blood tests which will create a system being referred to as “immunity passports”. The mobile apps – which will be completely voluntary, are intended to allow people to be informed in case they have been in close contact with a person who is positive to the virus, so that they can be tested themselves accordingly.
