Italy reported 70,520 Covid-19 related cases on Saturday, against 73,212 the day before, the health ministry said, while the daily number of deaths fell to 143 from 202.
Italy has registered 162,609 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak emerged in February 2020, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth highest in the world. The country has reported 16.1 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid-19 — not in-cluding those in intensive care — stood at 9,914 on Saturday, down from 10,076 a day earlier. There were 43 new admissions to intensive care units, decreasing from 46 on Friday. The total num-ber of intensive care patients stood at 409, edging down from a previous 411.
Some 421,533 tests for Covid-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 437,193, the health ministry said. The tiny South Pacific nation of the Cook Islands has reported its first coronavirus-related death, more than two years after the pandemic erupted.
A 63-year-old woman, who had underlying health conditions, died on her way to hospital on the island of Aitutaki late on Saturday.
“It is with great sadness that I announce that we have just recorded our first in-country death attrib-uted to Covid-19,” Prime Minister Mark Brown said in a statement Sunday. “She had had all three anti-Covid vaccinations, but also had several serious underlying health conditions.—AFP
