Italy coronavirus death toll tops 40,000

The number of deaths from the coronavirus surpassed 40,000 in Italy on Thursday, the latest in a series of grim milestones that also saw a record number of new infections, reported Xinhua.

According to the country's Ministry of Health, on Thursday Italy recorded 445 new deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. That is the highest one-day total in more than six months, and it pushed the total number of deaths from the pandemic to 40,192.

There were 34,505 new infections recorded over the last 24 hours, the highest one-day total on record for Italy. A day earlier the total was 30,550, in line with the trend from the previous eight days that had seen the daily infection rate stay within a broad range of around 26,000 to 32,000 per day.

The rising figures come amid the application of new coronavirus restrictions and rising concerns from the country's leadership.

The latest decree on coronavirus restrictions divides the country's regions into three categories based on the strength of the virus in that region. Travel between to and from the four regions in the most serious category -- Calabria, Lombardy, Piedmont, and the northern resort region of Valle d'Aosta -- is prohibited. The ratings for each region can change based on the spread of the virus within its territory.

Italo, the country's main private-sector train operator, said it would stop offering any train service in Italy starting Nov. 10. As it is, the company was only offering two trains a day connecting Rome and Venice, and six a day on the Naples-Rome-Milan-Turin line. Ferrovia dello Stato, the state train service, will continue to offer limited train services with social distancing and other health restrictions in place.

Regional leadership in three of the four regions with the high-risk "red" rating -- all except Lombardy, the hardest-hit region -- have complained about the new rules. But Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said he would not budge.

"If we introduced a single set of rules for all of Italy it would have a double-negative effect," Conte said. "It would mean not taking effective-enough measures where the risks are greatest, and applying unreasonably restrictive measures where the situation is less serious."

Virologists and epidemiologists have noted that the spread of the virus in Italy has been strong but that the mortality rate has not increased to the same degree, even figuring in the lag between the initial infection and the most serious part of the illness.

"In recent months the contagiousness of the virus has increased but its lethality has not," said Giorgio Palu, a professor emeritus from the University of Padua and a former president of European Society of Virology, told the news agency Adnkronos.

The new decree requires distance learning for older school children but still requires younger children to attend school in person. Several parts of the country have closed all schools. The policies have been a subject of hot debate in the Italian media, but Minister of Education Lucia Azzolina told Corriere Della Sera that setting school-related policies are difficult.

"The decisions are not easy," she said. "The one, central, important thing is to protect at-risk students and help everyone learn as effectively as possible. But as far as I'm concerned, I will only feel relieved when all the students can safely return to class."

Aside from the mortality and infection rates, other indicators have worsened as well in recent days in Italy. The number of patients in intensive-care units rose to 2,391, an increase of 99 compared to Wednesday but dramatically higher than the 586 recorded 20 days ago. But the number of recovered patients also rose by 4,961 -- one of its biggest one-day increases on record for Italy -- bringing the total number of recoveries since the start of the pandemic to 312,339.