Italy

ROME, March 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy will rush 10,000 student doctors into service, scrapping their final exams, in an effort to help the struggling health service cope with the coronavirus which claimed another 345 lives.

The death toll rose to 2,503 over the past 24 hours, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the total number of confirmed cases increased to 31,506 from a previous 27,980 – the largest number outside China.

ROME (AP) — Meeting with friends, dining out, worshiping and other daily routines have nearly halted as nations take drastic steps to try to stop the coronavirus pandemic.

Religious leaders gave sermons to empty pews or to the faithful watching online Sunday after public worship was curtailed in many places. The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City was being closed indefinitely, and the Vatican closed off next month’s Holy Week services to the public. Still, the 83-year-old Pope Francis ventured out of the Vatican to visit two churches in Rome to pray for the sick.

Rome; 15 March 2020 (UMM): Italy recorded 3,590 cases and 398 deaths within a 24 hour period, Civil Protection chief Angelo Borelli announced Sunday. The country has been on lockdown since last week

According to The Hill 15 March 2020, the country has confirmed more than 24,700 cases and more than 1,800 deaths.

ROME, March 12 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy shut all stores except for pharmacies and food shops in a desperate bid to halt the spread of a coronavirus that has killed 827 in the the country in just over two weeks.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the latest wave of restrictions in a dramatic appeal to the nation that came with the country of 60 million battling its biggest crisis in generations.

ROME, March 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy reported five more deaths from prison riots linked to the new coronavirus that have now officially claimed 12 lives over three days.

The justice ministry has blamed all the deaths on drug overdoses that occurred after prisoners broke into medical storage rooms.

The claim was impossible to immediately verify through independent sources.

Jails have been ordered to stop visits and limit day releases as part of a broad government response to a disease that has killed 631 people in Italy in just over two weeks.

ROME (AP) — Tensions in Italy’s overcrowded prisons erupted Monday over new coronavirus containment measures, with riots in at least two dozen lock-ups and the deaths of six inmates who broke into an infirmary and overdosed on methadone.

Italy’s national prisoner rights advocate urged wardens to take immediate measures to calm the situation and mitigate the new regulations, which include a suspension or limitation of family visits as a way to prevent transmission of the virus.

SOAVE, Italy (AP) — The battle to halt the coronavirus brought sweeping new restrictions Monday, with Italy expanding a travel ban to the entire country, Israel ordering all visitors quarantined just weeks before Passover and Easter, and Spain closing all schools in and around its capital.

Even as workers in Beijing returned to their jobs and new infections in China continued to subside, Italians struggled to navigate the rapidly changing parameters of the nation’s self-imposed lockdown.

ROME, March 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The number of people to have died from the coronavirus in Italy has shot up by 133 in a day to 366, officials say.

ROME, March 8 (Xinhua) -- A total of 6,387 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Italy since the epidemic first broke out here over two weeks ago, the Civil Protection Department said Sunday.

In addition, 366 people have died and 622 recovered, Civil Protection Department Chief Angelo Borrelli told reporters at a televised press conference.

This was up from 5,061 cases, 589 recoveries and 233 deaths announced in an official tally on Saturday evening.

ROME, March 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy reported 41 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, its highest single-day total to date, bringing the number of fatalities in Europe’s most affected country to 148.

The number of cases also jumped by a new high of 769, reaching 3,858 over the past two weeks.

The latest figures mean Italy has the second-most deaths behind China, where the new virus was first detected at the end of last year.

All of Italy’s 22 regions have now been affected, with the data showing the virus had reached the Aosta Valley on the French border.