Italy: Naples hospital overwhelmed with virus patients

Medical staff outside a Naples hospital were providing respiratory equipment to people in cars joining queues of ambulances to be hospitalised for suspected COVID-19.

Nurses walked along the line of cars handing out oxygen tanks to people with breathing difficulties while they waited to be admitted.

The Naples region, Campania, is currently third on the list of areas with the most COVID-19 cases in Italy, with much fewer cases than Lombardy, which is first on the list.

But at Cotugno hospital in the Naples area, the facility appeared unable to cope with the increasing flow of COVID-19 patients.

Naples resident Antonio Abenante said he had had no news of his father's condition and was desperate for information.

Another local resident, Elisa Esposito, said her father was admitted for a different condition but caught the virus in the hospital.

"This is a shameful situation because the health system here is totally collapsed," she said.

Italian government officials were deciding on Monday about expanding the so-called 'red zone' lockdown areas, beyond the four regions so designated last week in an urgent bid to slow the surging spread of COVID-19.

Campania was given declared a yellow zone last week, with less restrictive measures than orange and red zones, but this could change on Tuesday since authorities are deciding if to raise the southern Italian region to the red alert level.

People in red-zone regions cannot leave their towns or even their homes, except for essential reasons including food shopping, doctor's visits, work, or, in the case of younger children, schools.

Classrooms for upper grades are shuttered in red-zone regions, forcing older students to have lessons remotely.

Italy's daily new caseload of confirmed COVID-19 infections dropped considerably on Monday, but some 43,000 fewer swab tests were performed in the last 24 hours.

According to Health Ministry figures, there were 25,271 new cases, some 7,000 fewer than the previous day. Ministry figures on Mondays frequently reflect reduced testing over the weekend.

Still, Italy's overall number of confirmed cases in the pandemic climbed closer to the 1 million mark, with 960,373 as of Monday.

Since Sunday, 356 deaths were registered, raising to 41,750 the known total in the pandemic.

(Image Credits: Unsplash)