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The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has leapt by 793 to 4,825, officials said on Saturday, an increase of 19.6% — by far the largest daily rise in absolute terms since the contagion emerged a month ago.

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Originally posted by Daniel:
At this point, their healthcare system is overwhelmed. They're asking doctors and nurses to come out of retirement.

All the more reason I don't understand why the US doesn't have enough test kits, etc.

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Originally posted by jodi:

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Originally posted by Daniel:
At this point, their healthcare system is overwhelmed. They're asking doctors and nurses to come out of retirement.

All the more reason I don't understand why the US doesn't have enough test kits, etc.

We Were Warned

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The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has risen by 651 to 5,476, officials said on Sunday, an increase of 13.5% but down on Saturday’s figure when some 793 people died.

The total number of cases in Italy rose to 59,138 from a previous 53,578, an increase of 10.4%, the Civil Protection Agency said — the lowest rise in percentage terms since the contagion came to light on Feb. 21.

Of those originally infected nationwide, 7,024 had fully recovered on Sunday compared to 6,072 the day before. There were 3,009 people in intensive care against a previous 2,857.

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Originally posted by wtg:
Italy stabilizing a tiny bit? Getting close to the top of the curve?

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The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has risen by 651 to 5,476, officials said on Sunday, an increase of 13.5% but down on Saturday’s figure when some 793 people died.

The total number of cases in Italy rose to 59,138 from a previous 53,578, an increase of 10.4%, the Civil Protection Agency said — the lowest rise in percentage terms since the contagion came to light on Feb. 21.

Of those originally infected nationwide, 7,024 had fully recovered on Sunday compared to 6,072 the day before. There were 3,009 people in intensive care against a previous 2,857.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...o-5476-idUSKBN2190RO

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Italy has recorded a smaller day-to-day increase in new coronavirus cases for the second straight day, officials said Monday while cautioning it was too soon to know if the worst is behind the country with the world’s second-biggest caseload.

Data released by Italy’s Civil Protection agency showed 4,789 new cases from a day earlier, nearly 700 fewer than the day-to-day increase of 5,560 new cases reported Sunday.

The number of deaths also did not rise by as much. There were just over 600 more virus-related registered in Italy on Monday compared to 651 on Sunday.

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Italy’s daily COVID-19 death toll shot back up Tuesday, but more evidence emerged that the coronavirus infection rate is slowing thanks to a painful national lockdown.

Health officials across the ravaged Mediterranean country are poring over every new piece of data to see whether two weeks of bans and closures have made a dent in the crisis.

The harshest restrictions are theoretically due to expire on Wednesday evening – although the government is all but certain to extend them in some form for weeks or even months.

Italy’s 743 new deaths broke two days of successive declines that had taken the number down to 601 on Monday.

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The patient had won national swimming championships in his youth but now had a lot going against him. As he waited for a kidney transplant, doctors in the northern Italian town of Brescia discovered he had heart disease and had contracted the coronavirus. But what ultimately killed him this month was the decision to give his ventilator to a younger coronavirus patient who had a better shot at survival.

“He died the next day,” said Dr. Marco Metra, the chief of cardiology at the University and City Hospitals in Brescia. “If a patient has a low likelihood to benefit from the hospital, we have to not accept them. You send them home.” He added, “This is also what I am seeing every day.”

This is the nightmare situation for doctors throughout the northern Italian cities at the center of the global coronavirus pandemic. It is also one facing the countries lagging only days behind Italy in the progression of the pandemic, including Spain, France, Britain and the United States.

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In Europe, the shortage of respirators has had tragic consequences. On Sunday, the Spanish sports director of a Honda motorcycling racing team, Oscar Haro, released a video in which he said that his father had died after not being given a respirator. Both of Mr. Haro’s parents tested positive last Monday for coronavirus, he said, but his father was taken to the hospital while his mother was kept quarantined at home.

“I cannot understand how a person like my father who had been working since he was 15, paying into the system, died because there are no respirators, because they could not treat him anymore,” Mr. Haro said. He blamed the Spanish authorities for failing to prepare adequately, even after witnessing the spread of the coronavirus in China and Italy. “We are allowing to die a generation that built this country.”

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In Brescia, the hospitals have been reporting at least 350 new cases a day, Dr. Metra said Saturday. Between 10 and 15 percent of the doctors and nurses are now out sick with the virus, he said. And since the most serious virus patients require at least two weeks of hospitalization, practically the only patients who have left the hospital are those who have died.

At times, he said, his hospital has been forced to choose among multiple patients with a decent chance of survival in order to use its limited resources — mainly ventilators and the trained nurses to run them 24 hours a day — to save only a few of them.

“We try to be very selective,” he said, adding that those with a low chance of survival received morphine directly.