Italy’s intensive care units (ICU) took a breath after the most intensive month of their work ever. On Saturday, the number of COVID-19 patients has dropped for the first time since the beginning of the outbreak in the country.
On Saturday, Italy’s civil protection agency confirmed that over 70 people have been discharged from ICU in the past 24 hours, representing the highest daily figure since the beginning of the novel virus crisis. For healthy ministry, the trend looks very inspiring, in fact.
As of Saturday night, some 1,238 people in Italy have recovered from the coronavirus, which means the country’s total recovery number now stands at 20,996. On Saturday, Italy registered 681 deaths from COVID-19 – 86 fewer than Friday – taking the country’s total number of fatalities to 15,362.
According to civil protection service chief Angelo Borrelli, the drop from 4,068 to 3,994 intensive care patients over the past 24 hours became the first good news for over a month.
“It allows our hospitals to breathe. This is the first time that this figure has fallen since we started managing the emergency,” Borrelli said.
Borrelli also cast figures showing Italy’s death toll rising by 681 to 15,362 – officially higher than in any other country – in a positive light. Moreover, Tt daily rise in new infections across Italy has also slowed to just four percent.
But Italian officials are still not declaring victory and instead are preparing the country for at least another month of life under a general lockdown.
Italy had to fight the epidemic without support of the EU
The drop in critical care patients “is a strong signal but it should absolutely not be read as a sign that we have overcome the critical stage,” the government’s scientific council head Franco Locatelli said. “It shows that the measures that we have been applying have had success.”
On Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling on the EU to show more strength in the face of the continent’s coronavirus emergency.
“European solidarity has not been felt and there is no more time to lose,” reads PM’s letter.
