On Wednesday, The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Italy passed the one million mark, according to official data.
The country was the first in Europe to be hit by the outbreak earlier this year, sparking an unprecedented national lockdown that curbed infection rates but devastated the economy.
Italy recorded almost 33,000 new infections in the last 24 hours to reach 1,028,424 in total, according to health ministry figures.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government has brought in a nationwide overnight curfew and early closing for bars and restaurants, shutting them altogether and further restricting residents’ movements in regions where the infection rates are highest.
In an interview with La Stampa newspaper on Wednesday, Conte said he was working to avoid the closure of the entire national territory.
He said: “We are constantly monitoring the evolution of the contagion, the reactivity and the capacity of our health system to respond. Above all we are confident that we will soon see the effects of the restrictive measures already adopted.”
Massimo Galli, the head of the infectious diseases department at Milan’s renowned Sacco hospital, warned on Monday the situation was largely out of control.
