ROME -- The total number of people who have died from Coronavirus in Italy hit 3405 Thursday, meaning more people have died officially from the epidemic than in China where authorities say that 3245 people have died so far, Italian Civil Defense special commissioner for the emergency Angelo Borrelli said.
Jack Morgan Jones
ROME – With world economies on the brink of recession, nations entering lockdown mode, and individuals practicing social-distancing, the short-term impact of COVID-19 is already observable, but there will be many long-term implications for our societies, and these were analysed in a wide-ranging discussion hosted by the Euro-Gulf Information Centre (EGIC).
19 Mar 2020
John Phillips
ROME – Italy’s schools will stay closed in April and restrictive measures to try and defeat the Coronavirus epidemic will remain in place, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Thursday.
19 Mar 2020
Insider reporters
ROME -- As many as 475 people died from Coronavirus in Italy over the 24 hours to Wednesday in the biggest daily jump in the death toll so far, civil defence officials said, leading authorities to consider a total ban on outside activity. The Italian army was drafted in to the virus-infested city of Bergamo to transport 60 coffins of victims to other cities for cremation as local crematoria were overwhelmed, the defence ministry said.
18 Mar 2020
INSIDER NEWSDESK
ROME - The governor of Lombardy, Attillio Fontana, has said that new authoritarian measures will have to be adopted that use telecommunication companies to more closely monitor people's movements, unless Italians adhere to the strict social-distancing measures. The Italian Welfare Councilor, Giulio Gallera, has since clarified the government's position, saying that "the big telephone companies have made it available for us to see in an aggregate and totally anonymous way the movement of people. Nobody is controlling like Big Brother," he said, as quoted in La Repubblica.
18 Mar 2020
INSIDER NEWSDESK
ROME – The Italian governor of Veneto, Luca Zaia, has taken measures into his own hands to suppress the spread of COVID-19, by increasing the use of swab tests in the region to 11,300 per day, from which, out of a group of 3000, 66 asymptomatic positive cases were identified. “We just made a different choice. No controversy with the central authority and no claim for autonomy, not now at least,” he said in an interview with Corriere Della Sera.
18 Mar 2020
INSIDER NEWSDESK
ROME — An employee of the FAO tested positive earlier this month with Coronavirus and was hospitalized, Director General Qu Dongyu disclosed Tuesday.
The male employee of the UN agency was tested for high temperature at the entrance to the FAO headquarters in Rome March 9 and sent home before being hospitalized Monday, the Chinese chief of the FAO revealed in an email to staff.
17 Mar 2020
INSIDER NEWSDESK
ROME – Over 2000 Italian doctors and nurses have been infected by coronavirus, as the figures rose by 313 on Sunday, according to the figures the Italian Higher Institute of Health bulletin. As part of the Italian government's 'Cura Italia' decree, 10,000 freshly graduated doctors under the age of 30 will be mobilised to cope with the health care demands, reports La Stampa, with the Minister for Universities, Gaetano Manfredi, saying that Italy has to “take this moment of difficulty to adapt to the needs of a changing society."
17 Mar 2020
INSIDER NEWSDESK
ROME – Italians in Britain are at risk of contagion due to Premier Boris Johnson's “irresponsible inaction” and commitment to herd immunity, Italian Members of the European Parliament put to the European Commission. Citing the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the international scientific community, MEP Daniela Rondinelli, MEP Fabio Massimo Castaldo, MEP Eleonora Evi, and MEP Chiara Gemma, put questions to the Commission as to whether the British approach would put the 700,000 Italians currently in the UK at risk, and expose the EU to a second epidemic wave.
17 Mar 2020