Italy Reports Higher Number of Deaths, Cases

Medical responders in protective suits attend to a patient suspected of COVID-19 infection, in Rome, Italy, on March 30, 2020. (Reuters/Remo Casilli)

Italy reported a higher number of CCP virus cases and confirmed 610 deaths in the past 24 hours, officials confirmed Thursday.

The total number of cases in the country total more than 143,600.

“Faced with an epidemic of this proportion, I’d tend to trust the viral experts,” Deputy Finance Minister Antonio Misiani said on Thursday, according to Bloomberg News. “The sooner we get the health situation under control, the sooner we can get the economic engine started again.”

Civil protection authorities reported 4,204 new cases on Thursday compared with 3,836 on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the death toll also increased after officials registered 542 the day before.

The total number of virus deaths in Italy is now 18,279.

Volunteers looking on during the opening of a newly operative field hospital for coronavirus patients, financed by U.S. evangelical Christian disaster relief NGO Samaritans Purse in Cremona, southeast of Milan, on March 20, 2020. (Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images)

Franco Locatelli, head of Italy’s public health institute, said that officials are assessing whether certain workers can go back to work amid the lockdown.

More than a month ago, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced a nationwide lockdown in an attempt to curb the tide of new Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus cases and deaths.

An Italian doctors' federation also confirmed that more than 100 doctors have now died during the pandemic.

"The number of doctors who have died because of COVID-19 is 100—perhaps even 101 at the moment, unfortunately," the federation told AFP. Reports have also said that 30 nurses and assistants have also died.