MILAN (Reuters) – Italy reported 332 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday against 376 the previous day, the health ministry said, while the daily count of new infections rose to 22,409 from 19,749 the previous day.
About 361,040 tests for COVID-19 were carried out the day before, compared with the previous 345,336, the ministry of health said.
Italy has recorded 100,811 COVID-19-related deaths since its outbreak in February last year, the second highest number of deaths in Europe after Britain and the seventh largest in the world. The country has reported 3.12 million cases to date.
Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 – not including those in intensive care – reached 22,882 on Wednesday, down from 22,393 the previous day.
There were 253 new admissions to intensive care units, compared to 278 on Tuesday. The total number of patients in intensive care has increased to 2,827 from 2,756 previous.
When the second wave of the epidemic in Italy was accelerating rapidly in the first half of November, hospital admissions were increasing by about 1,000 a day, while intensive care occupation was increasing by about 100 a day.
(Reporting by Maria Pia Quaglia, edited by Agnieszka Flak)