Italy: virus pressure eases on hospital system

Italy's Civil Protection chief on Friday reported that the country's number of hospitalised persons with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, was now at 25,768 - a decline by 1,107 patients since Thursday.

"The pressure on the hospitals is continuing to decrease," Angelo Borrelli said at a daily news conference in Rome.

"We did not register such a low number of hospitalised persons since March 27," he added.

Borrelli went on to report that the number of recovered people had reached 42,727, up by 2,563 since Thursday.

The number of patients receiving treatment in Intensive Care had also declined.

"The great job we have done in the hospitals, the containment measures and the collaboration of citizens, have made possible the slowdown of the contagion trend," Borrelli said.

He did, however, report an increase of 355 new confirmed cases, taking Italy's number of current positive cases to 106,962.

Borrelli added that 575 COVID-19 patients had people had died since Thursday.